HI.
I just accidently wipe out my hard drive when i installed sun solaris, this is the last thing i remember, it ask me if want to delete the partition table, and i said yes" Im a retard" i thought solaris can't see xp partition table. Could anyone help me recover my data back, is it really gone. PlEASE help me!!!
Once the parition util in one OS no matter Unix or MS used and selected Yes to delete that particular Partition it will automatically set a Charater Saying that this partition will be deleted. If you are lucky you can undo what you type ( If that particular Option available ). Are you able to go back? If no then there is nothing canbe done Unless you are able to Set another partition and Reinstall XP. (This is one of my experience Input, maybe others idea could be diffrent or might save the situation ).
HI.
So my data is gone for sure, man 
Yeah i think it gone cuzz when i boot up with a boot disk, and you use the fdisk command all i see is the partition for solaris preparing to be installed.. well thanks for your reply.
Well, I bet much of it is physically there, but the disk can't read it properly. I doubt you want to spend the amount of money necessary to send it off to a data recovery center...
Just FYI, I almost did that myself a few years ago.
Now that you wiped your hard disk, you can go ahead and install Solaris and then come back and install XP.
The reason it wiped out your partition table is that the Active partition for Solaris must be the lowest or "0" root partition on the disk, which is where your windows OS is as well. Physics is a tough pill to swallow sometimes.
I believe that you can load XP on another partition, other than the root partition, but Solaris MUST have the root partition.
Sorry for the tough learning experience. I hope it works out for you. Didn't lose too much real data or documents I hope?
The data are not lost, but you need to keep your tongue straight in your mouth, and not load another OS onto any partition.
This is how I got my data back after the exact same operation as you did, Solaris asks a seemingly innocent question ('No, that can't be, it must mean just undoing the Solaris-specific stuff')
Boot a Linux floppy.
Run fdisk (Linux fdisk that is)
Check the ID.
Change it to whatever ID your OS has (there is a menu that lists the choices for you).
If you have not done anything (read ANYTHING) to your disk after the Solaris-thingy (throw that first disk away, use Program disk1) then you may get your data back.
I did. But I was lucky.
i think souldier done that before.
As what i experienced once the process of partition erase have been proceeded or selected then the chances of recovering the data are relally minimum or less then 15%. You can do one thing which is try as what LivinFree sugested. Get some budget to consult with data-recovery center. If you are lucky enough you can get your data back. If the partition erase once been marked and rebooted your system and it cant seems to find that particular partition it means the parition is gone.
Did you format the hard drive or just overwrite the partition table? That seems to be the first question to answer clearly. Based on what I've read so far, seems that you did not format the drive, but only changed the partition table.
This implies that you can recover the disk by rebuilding the partition table and master boot record, right?
After we identify the exact situation.... we can consider tools like:
http://www.dtidata.com/products\_bundle_01.asp
The trick is NOT TO PANIC and NOT TO OVERWRITE THIS DISK, OK?
The partition table is really quite simple, as long as the partition ID is OK, info on tracks and sectors are intact (all that can be done with Linix fdisk) then should there be some more data needed, that may be gotten off an alternative partition table.
This will be reall yinteresting, I like these things actually 
AtleRamsli,
Are you saying that he must take his broken XP hard disk and install it on a Linux system... and run fdisk ?
How does this work? Fdisk will try to read the partition table and the partition table is wiped out, right?
I am not sure that this will work......... and can't recommend using fdisk based on what I've read so far.
Souldier,
Recommend you read this first....
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/
Very good info there and it seems like what you need based on what I've read so far.
This links (below) is more technical reading ... and might help.... but seems to mathematical for most people ....
Neo!
Maybe I didn't explain this well enough: The problem is really simple:
As a result of an operation, some bytes on the disk have been reset, and they must be set back.
The tool used for that is really irrelevant, as long as the bytes get set back to their original values, disk structure, partition structure and type.
My suggestion was to start with the simplest, compare one partition table with another using fdisk's binary dump facility, and take it from there.
Of course it is not sure to work, if the more than these few bytes have been altered, then there is really no way to fix it, because there is no telling what those bytes were.
But, as for the ones that are part of the table:
Linux fdisk has a couple of options that let you make a binary dump of the partition table
You will start by m, to list th eoptions,
then x to list the advance options, and there are:
options to change info on cylingers, heads, sector/track
in most cases, the partition table is simply marked as 'unused' - this is what happened to me, so I could just put it back to 'used by linux '=83
But, of course, that is all it can do!
I found this info about the Microsoft boot sector layout
Field Offset Length
----- ------ \------
Bytes Per Sector 11 2
Sectors Per Cluster 13 1
Reserved Sectors 14 2
FATs 16 1
Root Entries 17 2
Small Sectors 19 2
Media Descriptor 21 1
Sectors Per FAT 22 2
Sectors Per Track 24 2
Heads 26 2
Hidden Sectors 28 4
Large Sectors 32 4MBR-Rescue sounds an aweful lot like the command "fdisk \MBR" on a DOS or Windows machine.
Also, the way I took AtleRamsli's post was an example of how he could do it - in that case, grab a Linux boot disk (for example, one of my favorite is tomsrtbt) that can get an x86 off the ground, then to use the tools within to get to fixing the hard disk setting...
I somewhat like that idea, since you don't have to sync anything to the disk prior to the change (like you would if you booted up Windows).
It also helps a LOT if have something to compare the dump to, it is often the case that you can restore the whole thing by comparing the different versions of MBR (in case more than just the type is overwritten)
In any case: Law nr.1: Stay k00l
I think I forgot to mention the most obvious advantage:
If it works, which, as it has been pointed out, you can not be sure of, you have fixed the whol problem in about 10 keystrokes or so ... this probably my main argument for giving it a shot before taking the more drastic measures ...
Yes, but the original poster has an XP system that he wiped out trying to install Solaris... this means he has an intact XP file system that he does not want to destroy. This implies that using a DOS base tool is less risk that fdisk (DOS or UNIX).
All the sites on the net recommend (and insist) NOT using (DOS) fdisk..... Seems to me that using a proven DOS based tool to restore a Windows filesystem is much safer than using a UNIX based program because the tool is designed to work with the broken filesystem......
Ah, ok, now I get it!
Of course DOS fdisk can not do anything here, this is why I was so explicit about booting a Linux floppy.
These problems, however, do not require use of any particular OS, since the nature of the problem is OS-independent.
I actually have the exact oppsite impression from you: That Linux tools are better suited for this kind of problem.
But I did not lose sight of the fact that this was a DOS-related problem, this is why I thought it a good idea to post the DOS-specific bootsector layout.
Armed with the capability to restore the MBR, plus the layout of the DOS specific part, I sohuld say that Souldier stands a fair chance, something which should become apparent after the first bootsector dump.
Yes, perhaps you are right AtleRamsli..... might be good to examine the master boot record and manually repair it with a binary editor. This would require the poster to have a working linux platform (and we are not sure they do or not...)
Also, does XP make copies of the master boot record and partition table like linux? If so, souldier might be able to examine one of the copies, obviously, and 'copy' in the correct place.
I don't know if XP makes 'copies' like linux... anyone know?
Hey,
Yeah, i lost all my data i just reinstalled the os, man this is a learning experience for me, Lucky for me this is not a production server or something. i probably get the boot out the door. Well thanks for all your guys help, i really appreciate it. Thank again.
Souldier
Ok not once did i hear, what kind of file system this guy was running on his XP machine, or maybe i miss read well if it was NTFS ther are easyer ways... and that dos utility would be useless..
From posts above on DIY DataRecovery MBR-Rescue: