How can I recover XFS partitions from a formatted HD?

Question

I deleted the partition table of my HD. I wanted to format another one, but by mistake, I formatted the wrong one. Then I also created some new partition on it. Now I would like, if possible, to recover my old data. The old configuration was this:

A primary NTFS partition with Windows, and a secondary partition with four logical partitions: a swap and three XFS partitions (two for Ubuntu and OpenSuSE, and one with the home for both systems).

This is the output I get when I run gpart in a terminal:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo gpart /dev/sdb

Begin scan...
Possible partition(Windows NT/W2K FS), size(39997mb), offset(0mb)
Possible extended partition at offset(39997mb)
Possible partition(Linux swap), size(8189mb), offset(39997mb)
Possible partition(SGI XFS filesystem), size(40942mb), offset(48187mb)
Possible partition(SGI XFS filesystem), size(40942mb), offset(89149mb)
Possible partition(SGI XFS filesystem), size(175044mb), offset(130112mb)
End scan.

Checking partitions...
Partition(OS/2 HPFS, NTFS, QNX or Advanced UNIX): primary
Partition(Linux swap or Solaris/x86): logical
Partition(Linux ext2 filesystem): logical
Partition(Linux ext2 filesystem): orphaned logical
Partition(Linux ext2 filesystem): orphaned logical
Ok.

Guessed primary partition table:
Primary partition(1)
type: 007(0x07)(OS/2 HPFS, NTFS, QNX or Advanced UNIX)
size: 39997mb #s(81915360) s(63-81915422)
chs: (0/1/1)-(1023/254/63)d (0/1/1)-(5098/254/51)r

Primary partition(2)
type: 015(0x0F)(Extended DOS, LBA)
size: 265245mb #s(543221849) s(81915435-625137283)
chs: (1023/254/63)-(1023/254/63)d (5099/0/1)-(38912/254/2)r

Primary partition(3)
type: 000(0x00)(unused)
size: 0mb #s(0) s(0-0)
chs: (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)d (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)r

Primary partition(4)
type: 000(0x00)(unused)
size: 0mb #s(0) s(0-0)
chs: (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)d (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)r

Looking the first eight lines, it seems the data are still there... but I don't know how to recover them. I have a free second HD of about 500 GB (the formatted one is 320 GB) that I can use for the recovery process.

Answer 1

gpart -W won't work, as it'll write out the new partition table that is being displayed after the first eight lines - which is in fact the new partition table. TestDisk is an alternative that will allow you to select the partitions that then want restoring.

Answer 2

FIRST, do a copy of your hard disc to your free one, I think the best option would be to do read dd man page and then copy the disc

man dd
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb

assuming /dev/sda is the old one with data and /dev/sdb is the new empty one.

SECOND, use devices from /dev/disk/by-id/* . This way you could avoid errors.

THIRD, remove the newly created partitions, so the found ones can be rewritten to the partition table. Use parted or fdisk.

FOURTH, read ALL the gpart mnan page, specially the "-W" option

man gpart
sudo gpart -W /dev/sdb

Hope this helps. But you have a backup, don't you?