Sometimes while playing with software tools which work on hard disk files or partition structures, like trying to install a boot manager, installing Linux OS (particularly old versions), you may accidentally delete / modify partition table data. In this situation you may be at the risk of losing your important files.
Taking back-up of your important files is good solution. But it may not always be feasible to back-up your data. There are free as well as commercial tools available on the internet which can be used to recover back deleted partitions and search lost files.
The disk partition structure is stored in the initial sectors of disk in what is known as the partition table. It contains the details required by OS to identify a partition. Partition table back up is also created and stored on the disk itself. When a partition is deleted its entries are removed from the partition table. All files and file structures remain intact. The data is destroyed only when a new partition is created in its place and files are written over it.
Some time ago when I was trying to install Ubuntu into my system which already had Windows XP installed, I accidentally deleted my D: drive containing some very important files. I created an empty partition in its place and continued my Ubuntu installation on another drive adjacent to D: drive. First some free File Recovery tools where tested but they would not find the files in the deleted partition.
Commercial disk recovery tools showed me that the files were present on the disk but they offered only previews, full recovery required license. I hoped that there may be an Open Source or at least a Freeware made for partition recovery.
A bit long search on the internet and TestDisk was found. Although it does not have good looking interface like those of the commercial counterparts it did the job. But you should be careful in using these tools and read all the instructions provided by its developers. For recovery of mission critical data commercial tools are recommended.
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