Hi.

I have a p4 with a 30 gig hd. I then bought a 500 gig ide and added it as a second drive, filling it to about 450 gig of data.

Then: I reformatted xp 2 days ago due to a virus and decided not to unplug the second (500 gig) drive, during the process.

It was an old version of xp with no service packs on it.

Now, the second (500gig) drive shows up under disk management as a "128 gig drive (of no file type) healthy".

I have since read this is due to the old version of xp I reformatted with and also leaving the 500 gig second drive plugged in as I re-formatted.

Question:
1.Can I recover the data?
2.if so can I recover the old partition (via software) without having to transfer the files to another drive?
3.If otherwise can I still do it with (data recovery)software myself or must it go to a shop.

Any help appreciated. It has 450 gig of all of my last 2 years downloading.

I am on the verge of tears here.