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Last Login: 9/26/2008 2:22:03 AM
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| | I decided to install another instance of vista home. I created logical drive D and boot pc using vista oem cd. I formatted new drive during installation and put vista on it. everything went fine but when vista was installed my primary c: disk became d: and it's all empty apart from boot, and bootmgr folders. Any ideas why it happend and how to get it back? Any help is appreciated as I'm desperate to return my 450GB of never backed up (stupid me) data. Thanks! |
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Lead Forum Moderator
Group: Vista Forum Moderator
Last Login: Today @ 3:13:43 PM
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| I'm a bit unclear regarding exactly what you did. Maybe it's just a difference in terminology.
You said you formatted the drive and created a logical volume (D) for Vista.
Did you mean that you created a second volume and formatted it? OR did you actually format the entire drive, essentially wiping out your existing Vista installation?
You say you tried to install Vista to a logical volume -- but you can only install a Windows OS to a primary volume, not logical.
As to whether or not you can recover your files, the answer depends on two issues.
First, if you installed Vista into a different partition, and only reformatted the original partition, you can use a third-party product (e.g., Recovery My Files, GetDataBack) to scan the original partition for deleted files and recover them. When you reformat a volume you don't actually wipe the files, you only rewrite the partition table. Thus, it is possible to get the files back.
Second, if you installed Vista over the top of your existing partition, the recovery process is still possible but will be less successful because some of the file space will have been overwritten by the Vista installation.
I believe that there are trial versions available of either product which allow you to search for files but not actually recover them. You should download and run the trial versions to see if they can find any of your files. Be aware that the filenames will probably NOT be recoverable. You will have to guess at the names.
ASUS A832nSLI-Deluxe, AMD 64X2 4400 OC 2.4GHz, 3GB OCZ,
Running: XP Pro, Vista Ultimate 32-bit, Vista Business, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
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Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 9/26/2008 2:22:03 AM
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| Hi, Thanks for the reply
There was a recovery drive D: that came with my dell computer. I extended it to 40GB and made it logical instead of primary. Then I booted pc from Vista OEM installation cd and clicked on format this new extended drive d:. I did not format or delete anything on my c: drive with existing vista and i could not confuse them as they have different sizes. After vista installation C: appeared to be D: and empty except few system folders mentioned above. I am not sure if I can install vista on logical drive but it did alow me to do that. Strangely enough acronis DDS still shows 40GB drive D: (now C: ) where new vista is installed as logical. I checked bcd records and windows boot manager resides on empty drive d: and boot loader is on the new drive C:.
I'm thinking now that i should have started installation from vista without booting from OEM cd. I already had a look on a couple of trial versions of recovery tools and it seems that RecoveryFix can see all the data including folders and files so i might go for the full version and try to recover the disk. I will check for the product you suggested if they are any better or cheaper. |
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Lead Forum Moderator
Group: Vista Forum Moderator
Last Login: Today @ 3:13:43 PM
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| I multi-boot Vista, XP, and a bunch of other OS's. When Vista is running, it shows its partition as "C", and the XP OS partition as "D". When XP is running, it shows it's OS partition as "C", and the Vista OS partition as "D". So, if you have two Windows OS partitions, the OS that is running will be the "C" drive.
I hope you did an image backup of your machine before you overwrote the Recovery partition. Unless they furnished you with DVD media, or you have a backup, you have no hope of restoring your original Vista setup now.
What you did sounded correct, so I have no idea why your original "C" partition should have been affected in any way by the second installation. I have read reports that Vista disallows multiple installations on the same machine, but those reported that the installer simply errored out and shutdown. Your installation completed successfully, so you shouldn't have encountered any problems with your other Vista instance.
As to Vista boot files on the original Vista partition, that's exactly what happened with my dual boot. Vista found the XP partition, and that being the first one on the drive, Vista wrote its boot files to that partition. What this means is that if you ever remove or wipe that partition, Vista will no longer boot. You will be able fix that booting from a Vista DVD and doing startup repair. But if you have no Vista media, that presents a serious problem.
ASUS A832nSLI-Deluxe, AMD 64X2 4400 OC 2.4GHz, 3GB OCZ,
Running: XP Pro, Vista Ultimate 32-bit, Vista Business, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
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