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