cgsecurity.org

First off, let me join the large number of users who have found testdisk invaluable. I have been trying to resurrect, inasmuch as is possible, a hard disk that I inadvertently started to format with GParted. I will say that I am a Linux neophyte, but that does not explain my stupidity in not identifying the correct media to format.

To recover from this error, I have been using the DOS version of testdisk and was not able to restore the MBR. So now I am at the point where I wish to recover any possible data from the "target" 250 GB disk before starting to reload Windows, etc. My problem is that DOS does not seem to recognize the 2 HDDs that are installed (i.e., no C: or D: drives), although clearly testdisk does (80,81) as well as the BIOS. Is it possible to copy the deleted files from the "target" HDD to another HDD installed in the system with the DOS version, or will it be necessary to use the Linux version to have the system be able to identify the drives?

After much further study of my problem, I have determined the problem is most probably the version of DOS that was being loaded, wherein the hard drives were not recognized. Is there a version of FreeDOS or something else that would support higher capacity drives?

Honestly it's far better to use a Linux Live CD like Fedora, several are listed at http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Livecd

Thanks so much for your response. I did put this recovery aside for a time, and now have returned. I used the Linux version and it found both hard drives (hda, hdb). I found and marked all the files on hda I want to recover, but still do not see any way to write same to hdb. Only the directories on hda seem to be available as targets. Obviously I am missing something. Any direction you could provide would be greatly appreciated.