Syslinux - May 2008 - Used mkdiskimage script on wrong drive!

I was trying to setup dsl (damn small linux) to boot off a usb drive. I found my
BIOS wasn't booting from it when using a USB-HDD mode so I found a page for
using SYSLINUX to set it up in USB-ZIP mode
(http://syslinux.zytor.com/usbkey.php).

I made a mistake and (doing exactly what the page warned against not doing) used
the mkdiskimage command on the wrong drive (a 230Gb NTFS external hard-drive). I
typed 'sudo ./mkdiskimage -4 /dev/sdb 243 64 32' instead of typing
/dev/sdc (for my 250mb usb drive) and now all my data on my external drive is
inaccessable from Linux and Windows.

I haven't performed any other read,write,partition (or format) commands
since running the mkdiskimage script.

Is there anyway to undo (or even partially undo) what I've done?

On Sunday, May 11, 2008, 14:38:21, Muller, SA, Mnr <14908832 at sun.ac.za>
wrote:
> Is there anyway to undo (or even partially undo) what I've done?
Try using something like testdisk, it should be able to recover the
files that weren't overwritten. Or, if you prefer a Windows GUI
program, you can try OnTrack EasyRecovery (but it's commercial).

-- 
< Jernej Simon?i? ><><><><><
http://eternallybored.org/ >

A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.
       -- Newton's Little-known Seventh Law

Muller, SA, Mnr <14908832 at sun.ac.za> wrote:
> I was trying to setup dsl (damn small linux) to boot off a usb drive. I
found my BIOS wasn't booting from it when using a USB-HDD mode so I found a
page for using SYSLINUX to set it up in USB-ZIP mode
(http://syslinux.zytor.com/usbkey.php).
> 
> I made a mistake and (doing exactly what the page warned against not doing)
used the mkdiskimage command on the wrong drive (a 230Gb NTFS external
hard-drive). I typed 'sudo ./mkdiskimage -4 /dev/sdb 243 64 32' instead
of typing /dev/sdc (for my 250mb usb drive) and now all my data on my external
drive is inaccessable from Linux and Windows.
> 
> I haven't performed any other read,write,partition (or format) commands
since running the mkdiskimage script.
> 
> Is there anyway to undo (or even partially undo) what I've done?
> 
Urk.  You have erased 250 MB of your 230 GB disk.  So you'd need a 
program which can recover NTFS with significant damage.  It might help 
if you can recreate the partition as it originally was, but I don't know 
all that much about NTFS recovery utilities (however, see the other post 
in this thread.)

The good news is that a recovery program should have a relatively easy 
time telling the good from the bad.

	-hpa

I have so far been able to recover a lot of my files using 'Partition Find
and Mount', but a lot more than 250mb of files seem to be corrupted/missing.
One folder of (at least) 20gb is completely inaccessable, I assume some of the
file referencing data has been overwritten (not sure if it's called file
allocation tables on NTFS, or even if it works that way).

After I've copied all the valid files I'm going to try other methods
(that actually alter the drive). Do you think that TestDisk will be more
succesful in recovering the rest of my data? Would 'deleted file
recovery' programs be more appropriate than 'partition disk
recovery' programs to retrieve the it?

Thanks for your help so far.