Recover data from an ''unpartitioned'' hard drive

Posted by Rafael S. Calsaverini on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Rafael S. Calsaverini
Published on 2009-11-12T17:10:26Z Indexed on 2010/03/17 8:11 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 363

Filed under:

hard-drive

I'm trying to recover data from a hdd for a friend from work. He was using it on an old win98 PC (so I guess it was a FAT 16 filesystem). When he installed the drive on a new PC his Windows XP can't recognize the filesystem and give an error message saying that the drive is unformatted.

I tried to mount the hdd under linux but no partitions appear to be associated with the drive (I have only /dev/sdb associated with that drive and no /dev/sdb1 or sdb2 etc).

I've found many articles on the web on how to recover partitions (with scripts like dd and ddrescue) but how do I make it when I have no partitions and the system say my drive is unpartioned?

Is it possible to create a new partition without loosing the data?

Related posts about hard-drive

Move smaller hard drive to partition on a larger hard drive

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
My parents bought a new hard drive for a laptop that I've owned for several years. It's much larger than the current one, so I plan on splitting it up to dual boot it with Ubuntu. I have no problem with partitioning a drive (I always keep a LiveCD handy), but my question is this: how can I go about… >>> More
Using an ATA-100 Hard Drive with a Thermaltake BlacX External Hard Drive Dock

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Is it possible for a Thermaltake BlacX HDD Dock to connect to and recognize an ATA-100 Hard Drive? I know that the specifications for the BlacX say that it only supports SATA & SATAII, but I was hoping for one of three things: 1) for it to still work even though it isn't supported 2) for there… >>> More
Copy the contents of one hard drive partition to anohter hard drive partition

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have made a C++ program which can copy the whole hardrive partition to another hardrive partition, but now I am looking forward for the program which can only copy the contents of one hardrive partiton to another hardrive partition. >>> More
backup hard drive image on external hard drive for Windows 7

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Hello, I am looking for a backup tool for Windows 7, that will allow me to backup my laptop’s hard drive on an external hard drive as an exact image. In a case of a problem with the main hard drive, I would like just to swap the drives and to continue to work using the backup hard drive. Thanks >>> More
Copy the contents of one hard drive partition to anohter hard drive partition

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have made a C++ program which can copy the whole hardrive partition to another hardrive partition, but now I am looking forward for the program which can only copy the contents of one hardrive partiton to another hardrive partition. >>> More

Developer IT