I have a hard drive with 98 installed that crashed and apparently the partition table was lost. Using Partition Magic I reinstalled the partition which allowed it to boot but all the data was missing. Then used Symantec SystemWorks unformat to try to recover the data. The resulting recovery showed most of the files as being corrupted and no folders or files in the Program Files folder. Any suggestions on what else to try to recover email messages, address books, etc. and some of the programs would be appreciated.

Quick answer - No! Especially the programs - one bit of data changing can be the difference between an app working and not.

What sort of programmes - I'll see what freeware is around for you

Yes, I would agree. When you have to go as far as re-creating partitions and trying to "unformat" or recover files with a utility program, the result of running each utility tends to mean that it either gets your system working or wrecks everything on the disk beyond recognition. Because of the changes that each utility makes to the files on your disk, you don't normally get left with the ability to run another utility.

But it's worth trying if you need to get the data back. But HippyWarlock is probably right in saying that the programs will be totally corrupted now.

I presume that you are trying to fix the hard disk by running it as a slave drive in another system and it's not the only hard disk in the original PC that it started in?

I Ran Recovery Cd Without Backing Anything Up How Do I Restore These Files Can I Name Them Old C Drive Help

Sinsin, you can't restore files from a backup if you didn't make a backup. To understand exactly what you've done, could you please tell us what the recovery CD was that you ran (a manufacturer's CD branded "Dell recovery CD" or something like that?) and where your files were before you ran the recovery process. It would also be useful if you could confirm that you are running Windows 98 or a different version of Windows. If you want to reply, could you please post your problem in a new thread rather than adding your new problem onto the end of this very old one? Thanks.