Greetings All,

I have a hard drive partitioned into a number of primary and extended partitions. One of the extended partitions (EXT2 formated) for some unknown reason has become unallocated (according to GPARTED). There was a LOT of
important data on this disk that had not yet been backed up elsewhere. I suspect the data is still there, but I have no idea how to restore the partition to life.

If some kind soul could post some detailed steps that can be used to recover this lost partition, it would be GREATLY appreciated.


Thanx in advance.

Rich

I would try testdisk and or photorec in an attempt to recover your data
http://www.howtoforge.com/data_recovery_with_testdisk

Does the output of fdisk show the same results.
You can try recreating the partition exactly as it was and if the filesystem is still intact you should be ok. Of course I would try this after you have recovered your data.

Well, there are a few ways. If you're running a dual boot and you need to get some files off now, you can try DiskInternals' Linux Recovery:
http://www.diskinternals.com/Linux-Recovery/

Chances are it will run on Vista, like Linux Reader does, but you might have to use the directory tree to navigate.


Other than that, you can try gpart, which got my data back.
http://www.linux.com/feature/57748 - An article i found from a quick Google.