Recover NTFS dynamic partition?

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wkearney99
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Recover NTFS dynamic partition?

#1 Post by wkearney99 » Mon Jun 14, 2010 5:33 am

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, and point me to the right place if you please, but does anyone know of tools that would allow recovering an NTFS partition on a dynamic drive? I've got a drive with a partition that was incorrectly deleted (removed as part of a mirror). The data is still on the drive, no other activities have been done on it. So I'm looking for something that would let me restore the partition.

I've seen a tool from DiskInternals that purports to do this. But it's rather expensive and appears to do considerably more than I need. So I'm wondering if there's another set of tools that might make it possible.

While I'd like to just recreate the partition in place on the drive, I could live with recovering the contents to somewhere else if necessary.

Thanks!

Icecube
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Re: Recover NTFS dynamic partition?

#2 Post by Icecube » Mon Jun 14, 2010 6:51 am

You can try Testdisk, but I am not sure that it works with dynamic disks.
Download Ultimate Boot CD v5.0: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html
Use Parted Magic for handling all partitioning task: http://partedmagic.com/

StopSpazzing
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Re: Recover NTFS dynamic partition?

#3 Post by StopSpazzing » Mon Jun 14, 2010 11:01 am

Im almost sure most of the partition editors included in UBCD can undelete a partition...tho that being said I have not tried to do so. After reading some documentation, from what I understand, Parted Magic which is included with UBCD, can do it because it contains GParted core programs.

I have a deleted partition on my HDD (its unpartitioned space right now) what I can try doing is seeing if I can recover the partition or if it can even be detected and with what tools. I'll will get back to you.
~Just StopSpazzing~

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wkearney99
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Joined: Mon Jun 14, 2010 5:19 am

Re: Recover NTFS dynamic partition?

#4 Post by wkearney99 » Mon Jun 14, 2010 1:54 pm

The curious thing is several of the UBCD utilities see the partition on the disc and show it as having the same type (42) as the others. But while the others come up as visible on a Windows box, the one I'm interested in does not.

So, where else is Windows looking to find whether or not to present a partition as present and/or mountable? I'm guessing there's something more to it than just the partition type 42?

StopSpazzing
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Re: Recover NTFS dynamic partition?

#5 Post by StopSpazzing » Sat Jun 19, 2010 3:09 pm

Just finished messing with test disk and in my deleted partition, it recovered it and i mounted the partition after a reboot and was exact size it was before the delete and there was information still on the partition that I forgot to delete..lol. Needless to say wiped the partition and then deleted it again.


So best bet is to try as Icecube suggested, testdisk which is included in parted magic. Its under system tools on the task menu (or for windows users "start menu").

You may try backing up the drive first just in case as a precaution.
~Just StopSpazzing~

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wkearney99
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Re: Recover NTFS dynamic partition?

#6 Post by wkearney99 » Sat Jun 19, 2010 5:43 pm

The trouble is dynamic discs don't use just the MFT. They also use an LDM database stored elsewhere on the drive. Which I've yet to find tools that assist editing it. It's the LDM that tells Windows how to treat the partitions. So it would appear that any changes to the MFT wouldn't help. Mainly because the MFT already sees it as a type 42 partition. So it looks like my only choice is to pull the data off the partition and recreate it. Not unless someone knows of an LDM editor?

StopSpazzing
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Re: Recover NTFS dynamic partition?

#7 Post by StopSpazzing » Sat Jun 19, 2010 7:24 pm

I apologize, needed to read more about dynamic disks....this is what I found that may help: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1263262

Side note:
Hmm, wonder if this: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ptedit/ Can be added to parted magic Icecube (linux version of ptedit)....basically allows to to hard edit Partition tables.
~Just StopSpazzing~

Visit the UBCD Wiki: http://wiki.ultimatebootcd.com
Please check your UBCD ISO MD5 Hash Sum; May prevent issues later on by not having an exact copy.

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