Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!virtech!cpcahil From: cpcahil@virtech.UUCP (Conor P. Cahill) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Recover from FDISK? (HELP!) Message-ID: <1012@virtech.UUCP> Date: 14 Aug 89 02:15:07 GMT References: <36300057@iuvax> <36300058@iuvax> Organization: Virtual Technologies Inc Lines: 25 In article <36300058@iuvax>, boyer@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu writes: > Sorry, I don't think that will work. In fact, the disk was accidentally > partitioned to the same partition that originally existed. And the data > that was once there is inaccessible. It seems to me, after looking around > with Norton, that the FAT has been erased. Is it possible that FDISK does > this? All of the data is still there. > > Dave Fdisk shouldn't modify anything other than the partition table. At least the fdisk that came with MS-DOS 2.11 did not. On that OS I fdisked the system to delete the dos partition and tried to boot the unix system boot disk. The unix system would not boot, so I re-fdisked back in my dos partition expecting to have to restore all the data, but lo and behold everything was as it should be. I haven't tried this on 3.3, nor 4.01 because who wants to try something that may destroy the system. Anyway, fdisk should only modify the partition table. It is not (or should not be) smart enough to do anything else because that is the job of format. If you're fat has been erased, it sounds like the disk was formatted. Norton 4.5 does have a utility that is supposed to help you in this kind of situation, but I have never used it and don't know how well it works. Good luck