Is it possible to unformat a hard drive? My youngest was trying some things she 
'learned' in school on her  computer and has formatted her hard drive. Any place 
I can find out to un do this goof up?
Steve

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re: Hard Drive Thursday, February 13, 2003 at 11:23 am Posted by spaceman (552 messages posted) Hi Steve, What's done is done. Sorry. Nothing to do but reinstall everything. Spaceman On Thursday, February 13, 2003 at 10:39 am, Steve wrote: > Is it possible to unformat a hard drive? My youngest was trying some things she >'learned' in school on her computer and has formatted her hard drive. Any place >I can find out to un do this goof up? >Steve [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Hard Drive Thursday, February 13, 2003 at 12:13 pm Posted by Oh_dear (1415 messages posted) There are some third party programs that might help. Search for unformat on the web. But if anything has been done to the drive since the format - like loading a file then the damage is done as some file will have been overwritten. On Thursday, February 13, 2003 at 10:39 am, Steve wrote: > Is it possible to unformat a hard drive? My youngest was trying some things she >'learned' in school on her computer and has formatted her hard drive. Any place >I can find out to un do this goof up? >Steve [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Hard Drive Thursday, February 13, 2003 at 2:07 pm Posted by Bob Harris (992 messages posted) First, do NOT write to the disk. Depending on exactly how he did the format it may be possible to do an UN-format. By that I mean if he did a quick format, recovery maybe easy and not too expensive. If he did a long format (also called a thorough format) recovery may be impossible without sending the drive to special forensic services (expensive). For Win98, try Norton Utilities version 2001 or even 2000. (Versions 2002 and 2003 are aimed at XP, although they may still do unformatting under 98. they do not unforamt under XP.) Do NOT install on the hard drive. Instead, run from the CDROM. There is both UNDELETE for single files (skip that) and UNFORMAT (do that). the boxed-set Norton Utilities come with a good manual describing several disaster scenerios and how to fix them. If you do get Norton, after the unformat, think about installing it. It has some other good features. Note that there are other unformat utilities. A web-search on UNFORMAT should lead you to them. On Thursday, February 13, 2003 at 10:39 am, Steve wrote: > Is it possible to unformat a hard drive? My youngest was trying some things she >'learned' in school on her computer and has formatted her hard drive. Any place >I can find out to un do this goof up? >Steve [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Hard Drive Thursday, February 13, 2003 at 2:44 pm Posted by Oh_dear (1415 messages posted) I had forgotten the Norton Utilities possibility - so long since I used them. I just checked my Norton SysWorks 2001 CD. unformat is there - has to run in a straight DOS environment so you have to boot from a startup floppy or restart to DOS. On Thursday, February 13, 2003 at 2:07 pm, Bob Harris wrote: >First, do NOT write to the disk. > >Depending on exactly how he did the format it may be possible to do an UN-format. > By that I mean if he did a quick format, recovery maybe easy and not too expensive. > If he did a long format (also called a thorough format) recovery may be impossible >without sending the drive to special forensic services (expensive). > >For Win98, try Norton Utilities version 2001 or even 2000. (Versions 2002 and 2003 >are aimed at XP, although they may still do unformatting under 98. they do not unforamt >under XP.) Do NOT install on the hard drive. Instead, run from the CDROM. There >is both UNDELETE for single files (skip that) and UNFORMAT (do that). the boxed-set >Norton Utilities come with a good manual describing several disaster scenerios and >how to fix them. > >If you do get Norton, after the unformat, think about installing it. It has some >other good features. > >Note that there are other unformat utilities. A web-search on UNFORMAT should lead >you to them. > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Hard Drive Thursday, February 13, 2003 at 2:47 pm Posted by Oh_dear (1415 messages posted) See my comments in response to Bob's advice. It may be possible to email you the Norton unformat files (about 440kb if shipped as a zip file). Post if you want to try that option - will need an email address for you (my email address is not supplied when I post here) On Thursday, February 13, 2003 at 10:39 am, Steve wrote: > Is it possible to unformat a hard drive? My youngest was trying some things she >'learned' in school on her computer and has formatted her hard drive. Any place >I can find out to un do this goof up? >Steve [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Hard Drive Friday, February 14, 2003 at 7:32 am Posted by Steve (1 messages posted) Oh Dear, I would appreciate the Norton unformat files. They may be what we need to get her school files back. I have McAfee Virus Scan but will look into Norton now. Thanks, Steve. On Thursday, February 13, 2003 at 2:47 pm, Oh_Dear wrote: >See my comments in response to Bob's advice. It may be possible to email you the >Norton unformat files (about 440kb if shipped as a zip file). Post if you want to >try that option - will need an email address for you (my email address is not supplied >when I post here) > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Hard Drive Friday, February 14, 2003 at 7:49 am Posted by Kaintuck (108 messages posted) Forgot the email address: spostlewai@mindspring.com On Friday, February 14, 2003 at 7:32 am, Steve wrote: > Oh Dear, I would appreciate the Norton unformat files. They may be what we need >to get her school files back. I have McAfee Virus Scan but will look into Norton >now. >Thanks, >Steve. > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Hard Drive Friday, February 14, 2003 at 8:06 am Posted by Oh_dear (1415 messages posted) Files being collected now. Do NOT run any other program on that drive until you run UNFORMAT. Any action to write onto the drive will reduce the ability for UNFORMAT to work On Friday, February 14, 2003 at 7:49 am, Steve wrote: > Forgot the email address: spostlewai@mindspring.com > > [Reply or follow-up to this message] Tip: Use one of the [Reply or follow-up to this message] links above to add a message to this thread Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows 98 Discussion Forum