Recover NTFS volume

[Adcadet]

I snagged a 200 GB drive after Thanksgiving for cheap and installed it in my PC (ironically, for backup purposes). I ended up moving around many of my drives (between computers and between controllers), and while waiting for the new drive to format, decided to delete some of the old volumes....and accidently deleted a volume I really would prefer to keep. For some reason, Windows (server 2003) won't let me simply reactivate the volume. Dang. I found url=http://www.petri.co.il/recover_a_deleted_ntfs_fat32_volume_in_windows_xp_2003.htm]this article[/url], and followed it out to the part where I re-create a volume of the same size (entire HD in this case) but don't format it. But after that (step #2 in the article) I get lost. Is there an easier way to recover a volume? Is there a utility with a free trial that would be worth getting? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[sechs]

This was a dynamic volume?

 

[Adcadet]

yup. A friend loaned me his Ontrack easy recovery professional, which I'm now trying to use. Not sure if I should be doing a raw recover or format the drive and do a formatted recover.

 

[sechs]

Most standard tools can't do a volume recovery on dynamic volume. File-wise recovery is probably your best shot.

Why on earth was this a dynamic volume?

 

[Adcadet]

I'm sorry, I meant it was a simple volume on a dynamic disk.

 

[sechs]

My statement applies to all dynamic disks, irrelevant of their volume structure.