cgsecurity.org

Hey,
I made a big problem. Yes I know it was completly my fault... Ok what happened?
I have an old Computer with Windows XP (Acer Aspire T620). I have it as a secundary computer to have some fun with Windows XP-Games. And I thought: "Lets try to install Win 98, to play Win 98 Games." So I took a new HDD and unlocked the XP-Hdd to install win98 and it worked well. After I locked the WinXP-Hdd again I could choose from which Hdd I wanted to boot.

Because I had some troubles I wanted to reinstall Win 98. So I started from the Win98-BootCD and Fdisk (it is Fdisk I think) started to formate my HDD for win98-Installation. I said yes to every question, so that fdisk could delete my Win98 HDD and reinstall Win98. But then I realised I forgot to unlock the WinXP-HDD so it started to formate it. To be clear, when I stoppped:
If you install Win98 there are 3 steps: 1. Fdisk deletes the Partition, 2. after booting it will write new partitions and 3. it will install Win98. I realised my mistake before step 2, so I think nothing was deleted, becuase I did not let him boot again to keep going. After I stopped everything every partition from the HDD was gone.

So I tried to recover the partition with a boot-CD and Testdisk. The problem is, it just founds my secondary Partition, not the important C:\ Partition. It founds another partition but it is corrupted. Laterly I will send some Images. There is no difference between the quick and the deep search.

The HDD is 200 GB and had (at least) a C and D partition (I think so) And there must be a recovery-Partition (MRB?) - but I am not sure about it. I cannot recover with a CD, because... I have no recover-CD anymore. (Is there a way to install XP-Home again, without a XP-CD, I have a original key on the Computer?).

I also tried to use my current PC to use testdisk with a USB - but there Testdisk could not find any HDD.

Thank you for every help!!

No. If you can't repair your broken installation, you must have some working recovery media - either on disk (not available in your case) or on CD-ROM.

Here are the pictures.
to make it clear, my goal would be:
Plan a: Recover c
Plan b: Recover mrb
Plan c: Install winxp

The rest

Did you get access to your lost partitions using the "p"-key ("list files") ?
If that fails, Testdisk won't be able to somehow repair your formated disk.

The question is what has been on your first partition - just some XP boot files? Those might be taken from another computer.
Does the "Programme"-partition contain your XP installation "Windows"-folder as well?

recuperation wrote: 23 Sep 2020, 21:25 Did you get access to your lost partitions using the "p"-key ("list files") ?
If that fails, Testdisk won't be able to somehow repair your formated disk.

The question is what has been on your first partition - just some XP boot files? Those might be taken from another computer.
Does the "Programme"-partition contain your XP installation "Windows"-folder as well?

No testdisk could not find files in the first partition (picture 4), and there should be the whole windows installation. Normally i call this partition "windows", like "Programme" for the programs.

Und selbst wenn Testdisk etwas finden sollte:

Der oben aufgezeichnete Plan passt nicht zum Installationsprozess von Windows XP.
XP wird nicht aus einer vorhandenen Installation heraus quasi aus sich selbst neu installiert.