HELP - Lost HD

[ubima]

My host is Windows 7 Prof 64-bit and guest Windows 7 Home 32-bit. My VirtualBox kept on crashing and I lost my virtual machine. I created a new one and asked it to use my two existing virtual HDs (one for the OS, one for data). The OS had no issues but my data HD did not show up in Windows Explorer. Going into the disk manager in the guest OS it said the HD needed to be initialized. I clicked yes which I probably should not have done. I did not format the HD, though. In any case, I REALLY need to get the data HD back up. What do I need to do so the guest OS recognizes the data HD?

[vbox4me2]

Look into free data recovery tools, or boot a linux liveCD/ISO, attach damaged disk as second drive.

[ubima]

I was hopeing for some 'trick' to get it up again. Anyways thanks for the reply. I assume you are suggesting to run a data recovery program on the guest OS, correct? How about the boot CD you suggested? Would that be on the host OS?

[vbox4me2]

No as a virtual OS where the damaged disk is attached as secondairy.
http://www.google.nl/search?hl=nl&sourc ... =&aql=&oq=

[ubima]

I took the route of a data recovery program as I am not sure how one of these LiveCDs can scan a virtual HD (vdi file). However, none of the ones I tried worked (PCInspector, Easeus, etc). They don't even see my HD. In the Windows disk manager the disk shows up as Unallocated. I could create a "Simple Volume". While that won't format the HD I don't want to take the risk of damaging more. What should I do going from here? Help!

[vbox4me2]

The liveCD is the VM, as you would boot of a VDI you boot with the ISO, inside this VM you then access the damaged VDI.

[mpack]

If I understand what you did correctly, then the data is only recoverable if you ship it off to an expensive commercial data recovery service. If you hadn't reinitialized the disk then some of the off the shelf tools might have worked. As it is, you did indeed repartition and (quick) reformat the drive. That's what "initialize the drive" means.

The only practical cure for something like this is a backup.

Were you using snapshots in the original VM which kept crashing? This sounds like a typical snapshot disaster.

[ubima]

I initialized the HD thinking that otherwise the recover tools can't see the HD to recover files. That obviously wasn't very smart to do. Well, I have backups on most my other computers through a Windows Home Server but did not have it on my new PC with the virtual PC on it. I have a snapshot of the OS part but not the data part. Can these external data recovery services work with virtual HDs? Also there are some programs that claim they can handle formated HDs. Wouldn't such a program work?

[vbox4me2]

Some commercial solutions let you download a trail version which shows you if some things are accessable, you'd have to pay to actually restore them.

[mpack]

The expensive commercial data recovery outfits will have a guy looking at the sectors by eye, manually picking out things that should be consecutive, making intelligent guesses about "that data looks intact" etc (*). This isn't a process which can be automated, that's why it's expensive - and for damage as serious as this I wouldn't trust the claims for an automated tool any further than I could throw it - they are just as likely to corrupt the drive more. Of course if you aren't going to pay for that expensive service, and your data is already gone, then you have nothing to lose I suppose. Especially if you work on a clone (or just make backups before you start).

(*) Commercial houses might have to do a lot of work on a damaged physical drive to even get to this stage, obviously that doesn't apply here.