[luau] HELP please, need "undelete" / data recovery utility for FAT32 (Win 98)

[MonMotha]

Ray Strode wrote:
>>
>>
>> When you start the machine, it will come up to the C:\ prompt, and
>> the directory listing shows COMMAND.COM and a couple of other
>> hidden/archive/read-only files.
> 
> Sounds to me like "format C: /s" was typed.
> 
> Don't know how to help tho, sorry.
> 
> If I'm not mistaken , unless the /q options is used, the drive is zero'd
> sector by sector, so I think this is a tougher problem then one might
> expect. 
> --Ray


If the drive was indeed zeroed sector by sector, there's virtuall NO WAY 
a software solution is going to get it back.  Fortunately, just writing 
nulls isn't the most effective way of erasing data: the drive can't see 
it as it sees the nulls, but a person using specilized equipment can 
essentially "mask out" the nulls and see what used to be underneath it. 
  Obviously this requires that you have not written anything more to 
that area.  Unfortunately, this service isn't cheap as it requires 
highly skilled operators on very expensive equipment (can you say 
Electron Microscope and the op reading the bits by hand?), but if the 
data was REALLY important to you, it can be recovered.

If the /q option was specified, turn that box off NOW and put the hdd in 
a linux box (dos/windows won't work as it will automagically "mount" it 
read/write).  You can then use a hex editor and follow the old 
filesystem (I think FAT stores a few backup FATs someplace) and extract 
the needed data by hand that way.  There are probably tools to automate 
this for you.

--Monmotha