lost a partition, recovery program finds wrong files

i have a few drives from my old computer laying around, and i needed so info off them

my new computer has a single IDE port, so i disconnected my 500gb IDE drive (windows is on my sata drive)

i did a test boot of the system w/o the 500gb IDE connected, computer failed to boot. shut down and reconnected my 500gb IDE, rebooted, computer ran fine

checked my boot priority, order is floppy (nonexistant currently) Sata, then ide

double checked that all my programs are on the sata, yup

so i take my 10gb ide and run it in the slave position to my 500gb master, boot computer and explore my 10gb drive, files are mostly corrupt, and its the wrong drive.

shut down, disconnect drive, decide to screw w/ it later

reboot computer w/ the 2 500gb drives set / connected just as they originally were …

windows takes foooooreeeveeeer to boot, then forever to load the programs that are set to start on startup.

wonder if its just a fluke … reboot … same thing again

so now i get curious … theres 2 partitions on the 500gb IDE, both with info, and 2 on the 500gb sata, only one of which is used …

im missing an entire partition off the IDE drive now … it shows in “my computer” but wont open and is missing its name “cad files”

recovery time … no biggie …

download a program, find all the files, realize the program requires payment to actually resave everything it found … fuck

find another program (100% free this time) and rescan … this program tells me that the missing partition is:

10gb instead of the actual 250gb
filled w/ the files of the 10gb drive

said 10gb drive was laying on the floor next to the computer at the time … and its not a wireless drive :eyebrow:

any suggestions on how to recover the actual data on the drive ?

bump

Attach 250gb HD with a USB adapter?

well i somehow got the wont-boot-with-only-the-sata-attached problem sorted out, so im running the computer like that for now, so ill just plug my old drive in in place of the 500gb ide when it comes time to pull the info off them again, thats not a problem. ill just have to transfer the files 20gb ide --> 500gb sata -->500gb ide to get them where i eventually want them

but id rather figure out what happened to cause this first, and i have to get that partition back in order to put the files where they eventually need to go …