Rad, and everyone at Rad Forums, I need your help.  My 2nd hard drive was reformatted by someone i was chatting with in a warez channel in IRC, who turns out to be a hacker.  I am 95% sure he did it.  

I don't want to get back at him or whatever (he may just be a little brat for all i know).  It was my fault tho for being vulnerable at that time.  I just want to recover the files contained in the hard drive that was reformatted.

Now tell me, is it still recoverable?  If so, how and what do i need?   Help!!!

I'll wait for some advices before I start experimenting on available utilities.

I have some hack-meister friends. I only bother them when I have real trouble. I need a detailed description of the problem.

Do you have a firewall? Back-up ghost image? able to read any files? Type of connection.

IRC is where the bad dudes hang out.

Recoverability
NTFS or FAT32?
NTFS    - Restorer 2000
FAT32   - DIY DataRecovery

Keeping it from happening again
did you load an EXE? Naughty Naughty Tisk tisk tisk

Good antivirus scanner (Nod32, kaspersky)
Good Trojan Scanner (TDS3, Trojan Hunter)
a watcher for the watchers Filechecker http://www.wilders.org/free_tools.htm

Disable uneeded services (W2K www.blackviper.com)
Good firewall (free ZoneAlarm, Linux Bastille in its own box)
Dont use an administrator account
Ive added a few security links to the forum, take a look ;)

first of all, i apologize for not replying ASAP.  i got disgusted w/ the peeps in IRC and also the never endless supply of puter problems, thats y i refused to use my PC for a long while

in response to ur inquiries (tho alot has changed since i reformatted) these r my settings then, as far as i can recall

firewall:  ZA 2.6.357
had a Ghost backup but it didnt work (does Ghost give u bad images if ur not the legit owner of the copy?)
IRC is wer it happened, at a warez chan.  i admit to leeching lots of stuff just coz theyre available. and i usually test-install each one.
btw m using XP Pro and yes, im using the admin account
i also hav no installed anti virus utility nor trojan detector. only use trend's and symantec's online service
i connect vIA cable modem
ummm... wat else....

i really dont know what program he used.  and i really dont care anymore. i just stay away from users like that. altho the crisis is over, i'm glad to know that my cry for help was heard and there are who are willing to help.

:)

newer version of za is now available (free). grab it

http://download.com.com/3000-2092-10039884.html?part=zonealarm&subj=dlpage&tag=button

going to irc with no virus protection. r u crazy?

did u 'check' the ghost image. i've never heard of a valid checked image not restoring.

this might help:

http://radified.com/Security/shields_up.htm

interesting reading:

http://grc.com/dos/grcdos.htm

what is warez?

yeah, i think so since i also have auto accept enabled. lol... but true

i'll be getting ZA's free file later

is dat the D... Of Service site? been there and even DL'd the vid showing how the net works. the sites' owner tho (forgot his name... jim?) sure is a good salesman. ive turned bein a pro to an anti, far as he's concerned. shields-up gives the same results w/ or w/o a firewall.  only difference was PING port is CLOSED.

w/ regards to the ghost image, dunno if its the copy, the serial, or one of my settings that messed things up. but when i rebooted after installing the ghost image, an error prompt appears saying its not a system drive/partition and just press enter to proceed to the next alternative boot device

Rad, I really learned alot from you.  Thank You!

I'm in a southeast asian country and i plan to put up a site similar to your's. to cater to peeps in my country

ketamine wrote on Aug 26^th, 2002 at 8:57pm:

one of my settings that messed things up. but when i rebooted after installing the ghost image, an error prompt appears saying its not a system drive/partition and just press enter to proceed to the next alternative boot device

You will need to select the option to image the master boot record (and save to disk) or image the whole drive option  ;)

Time to reread the guide  :P