help:data loss....

[Thomas]

You must not use HDInstTool if you used HDToolbox before and vice versa.

If you have a full version of RDB-Salv, now it is time to use it.

Otherwise you can use RDBRecov which does the same but is not as comfortable.

RDBRecov needs a partitioning tool to recover your partitions. You should use HDToolbox for that as HDInstTool does not let you change the drive's geometry.

You can use KillRDB in order to wipe the old partition table so that HDToolbox does no longer crash.

Because you only had one partition, you should first give this a try: use KillRDB, run HDToolbox as usual and create one big partition which covers the entire space. If this is how the HDD was partitioned initially, then it will bring your data back without running any recovery tool.

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

The partition was FFS, but I don't remember whether it was international or not. Does it matter?

No, it does not matter. Partition borders (first cylinder, last cylinder and number of blocks per cylinder) matter, as well as the block size.

But you should choose "international" now, because I think that FFS-INTL can read FFS-NON-INTL partitions, but not vice versa. But I could be wrong here.

If your suggestion does not work, can I then try with RecoverRDB ? (which, BTW, is made by you, isn't it)?

Well, there are many programs on Aminet with "RDB" and "Recover" in their names. The one I wrote is called "RDBRecov". There is another one called "RDBRecover" IIRC which can only be used if you saved the RDB before. And the same applies to "RecoverRDB" IIRC.

So if you want to try "RDBRecov", then yes, it might help, although it was not meant for FFS partitions originally.

But you'll get free support from the author :-D

Bye,
Thomas