Problems with Dual-booting BackTrack and Windows 7

[warflamingo]

Hi everyone. I'm very new to both setting up a dual-boot system, and BackTrack, although I do have experience in both Ubuntu and Gentoo. I attempted to install BackTrack on my laptop yesterday, and I followed the How-To on dual-booting word for word (Dual Boot | BackTrack Linux - Penetration Testing Distribution). I don't know what went wrong, but I can't seem to find my Windows half of the hard drive anywhere. To make matters worse, the partition editor is showing that my hard drive is divided into only 2 partitions instead of the 3 i expected; 1 is 480gigs and 1 is 10 gigs. Unfortunately, I only backed up completely vital files (class notes, etc.) and didn't bother to back up my music library, pictures and things like that. Is there any hope that my Windows partition wasn't overwritten, or am I just SOL? If it wasn't overwritten, how do I access it? If it is, is there anything at all that I can do to recover it?

If you need any further information, just tell me and I'll do my best to provide it. Thanks in advance.

[KMDave]

Run a fsck on the command line and let it show you the partition table.

If this results in only a Linux and Linux swap your Windows is gone.

Not sure on how good or how bad recovery tools are.

[Snayler]

Is there any hope that my Windows partition wasn't overwritten, or am I just SOL? If it wasn't overwritten, how do I access it? If it is, is there anything at all that I can do to recover it?

It should be possible to recover the data from the parts of the disk where BT hasn't written anything. You see, when you format your disk or delete some files, the data will not be erased, it will still be there. What your computer does is erase the records that point to the section of the disk where the file is located (that's why computers are quick "erasing" files). As for recovery software, there are plenty on the webs, it's a matter of trying some. I believe there is a linux distro specialized in data recovery, but I can't recall it's name. Either way, a fast google search will tell you it's name.