Thank the Gods for backups!!

[M_Six]

I was about to reinstall XP on a machine that I had trouble installing it on originally. Because it wouldn't install to the drive I wanted it on, I had to slave that drive to a working XP drive and then install from inside XP to the slaved drive. Then I swapped out the drives and let it boot up. Everything worked ok except the system partition was now D:\ instead of C:\. XP won't let you switch the drive letter of the system partition. I didn't think this would be a big issue until I went to install virus protection. The install program would only install to C:\Program Files. When it couldn't find it, it just crashed out. So I recently decided to reinstall with the hopes of getting it on the proper drive letter.

The second partition on this drive contained the just completed inventory of our collection of 5,200 books. My g/f just finished it a few days ago after a 5 months long project. I figured it wouldn't be a problem since I was only installing to the system partition and wouldn't be touching the second partition.

WRONG!!!

In my half bleary-eyed state I hit the delete partition keys without making sure what I was doing and POOF, no more partitions anywhere. Hitting F3 and getting out at that point didn't help. The MBR was gonzo. I tried FIXMBR and fdisk /MBR to no avail.

Luckily I decided yesterday to back up the data partition to my newly installed Win2K server. Saved my bacon. The inventory is safe and so am I. Whew!

Now it'll be interesting to see what data I can recover from the messed up partition.

[Brainchild]

You toast a months work your g/f done 1 of 2 things is gonna happen she ain't talkin to you for a while, or she's gonna talk loud for a long time

Your a lucky man

[MDS]

Been there and done that only I lost important legal files for my business and a good friend here on the board help me recover it I would have been in bigggg trouble if I didn't get the info back. I now backup on a reg basis.

[crouse]

That reminds me............... time to do a backup.

Gonna fire up my burner RIGHT NOW !!

[PresterJohn]

regular backups are a often overlooked necessity when you are storing data on magnetic media. you can either back it up now or repent later on...

[shahani]

Being the paranoid type I do a back up of a back up.

Just in case.

[davidamarkley]

I must be REALLY paranoid, cause I backup to a CD-R that I put one in a fire safe, the other in an off-site location, and another in a safe deposit box. And, also I put a copy on Yahoo! Briefcase, and one on my off-site webserver.

That totals, 5 Backups!!!

Great to hear though that your girlfriend's data was safe! That IS a lifesaver!!

Have you gotten anything else off of the messed-up partition?

David

[Nighthawk]

wow, lucky! I usually get a backup monthly, and then almost every time I'm moving my machine. You never know when a case will decide it wants to try to fly

Good luck getting stuff off the partition!