When a virus made executing programs impossible, I decided to reinstall XT on my wife's computer. I told her till I was blue in the face 'back up - back up - back up' well she did ONCE about a year ago. So just to be safe I inspected the drives with another software and found the '0' drive was partitioned as 'c' and 'h'. I knew she had all her data on 'h' drive and nothing but the OS on 'c' drive. So I load XT and it see's the partition and I elect to reinstall on 'c' leaving 'H' alone. Quick format, reinstall and the 'h' drive has disappeared. NOWHERE does XT tell you it is formatting the 'O' disk complete instead of just the partition as 'C' where I elected to install. Inspection tells me that XT is now on one drive and the partition points identified are inaccessible [ I can see them but they are marked as un-usable]. If I use a partition utility, it will wipe out my install and I wont be able to boot to it anyway to recover the files. I am now trying 4 different recover programs to see if I can get her years worth of data off the '0' drive now totally named 'C'. It was my fault for not using the third party program while the virus was on it to rip off all the data only files from 'H'. Lesson 1. 'back up - back up - back up' a rule I follow anyway and has saved me 3 times in the last 2 years but now I am persona-non-grata for not following my own steps simple because I ASSUMED she did what I told her and not just once. A years worth of data down the drain [ her business files - clients, bills, receipts, meetings appointments the ^%$#&* lot]. What can you do ?, I even installed the back up software and showed her how to use it and did everything but hit her on the head with it. "for gods sake, it's your BUSINESS" but no - it's totally MY fault for not double checking the back up file dates. AND assuming XT install would do what the damn screen said it would do. Another valuable lesson learned and I will never - ever forget it. It's no good mirroring the drive, or copying off all the data to 2 other safe USB high drives if you only do it ONCE then forget about it. I will let you all know what happens.
