I certainly feel dumb right about now.

I accidentally ran mke2fs on the wrong partition, and all my vital data is no longer accessible. mke2fs was run with the -c option, which does read checking (but not write checking). As soon as I realized I'd created a filesystem on the wrong partition, I unmounted the drive and re-mounted it read-only. I then made an image of the raw disk data and saved it on a seperate hard drive in case I end up ruining the original somehow. I checked the disk image with a text editor and found that all my data is in fact intact, but I have NO clue how to retrieve it. I REALLY need this data back. Without it, I'll likely get fired within a couple days. Can anyone help me figure out how to retrieve the data?

Thanks,

You're about to learn a very important lesson, I feel.

There's two types of data:

1) Data you have on a tested backup system
2) Data you don't need.

If you know what the partition table was, you may be able to recreate it that way. Otherwise take the disk to a data recovery expert. There's plenty of the services advertised. It'll cost you have it recovered, assuming it's possible. But that's better than losing your job, right?

Regards

in case u have not switched off your comp ,partition table must still be in /proc/partitions ......

The Computer Science Prof at a local college might be helpful, or an assistant. He may be very short of time and feel very overworked but with a correct approach and full explanation of what happened... he may be willing to help or could possibily point you to some one that might have the expertice/tools needed for what you seek. Back-up's are your friend. But I cant judge anyone untill I heed that same advice.

The irony of it is that I was installing a new hard drive to use as my new backup location (I'd run out of places to store backups). The drive was all ready and fdisk'ed, and when I went to type mke2fs to make the filesystem, I mis-typed the device's name and ended up making the filesystem on the drive I intended to backup all along.

I've been trying to get in touch with Ontrack Data Recovery (they *might* be able to restore the files remotely), but apparently their "emergency hotline" doesn't reply very fast. I've been waiting 8 hours. Good thing I'm not in need of life-saving first aid...

Meanwhile, I'm still looking for a local solution, but no luck

In the meantime, read this:

http://www.amanda.org

Regards