🚀 go-pugleaf

Sorry if this appears twice, but I don't think my first attempt to post
worked.
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Help!  I have managed to apparently thoroughly trash my hard disk, and
am wondering if my only recourse is to reformat.  I would appreciate some
advice from any gurus out there.

First of all, here is my system:

    386DX - 25 MHz, Micronics motherboard, no cache
    Dos 3.3
    40 MB IDE (Teac) partioned as C: 30 MB and D: 10 MB

I just upgraded from 1 MB to 5 MB and decided to install a disk cache using
SMARTDRV (the version that came with Windows 3.0).  I did that and then
ran the QAPLUS diagnostics which came with my system to just
poke around a little.  Without thinking, I ran the memory test included
in that package.  After I quit, my C: drive was thoroughly trashed.
I assume that I shouldn't have done the memory diagnostic while SMARTDRV
was active, but I don't know exactly what I might have done to the disk.
If I do a DIR on C:, I get "File not found" and a volume label
of !"#$%&'()* which is in nicely ascending ASCII order.  It won't boot, of
course.  I am speculating that I overwrote large areas of the disk, like
the operating system, directories and maybe the FAT.  The D: partition is
OK.

So am I screwed?  I don't mind reformatting except that there is some
data that isn't backed up and would be a pain to reproduce.  Is there any
hope of recovering some of the data?  I don't have Norton Utilities or
PC Tools, but would get either one if there was a good chance I could
recover some data.  I understand there is at least one other copy of the FAT
somewhere on the disk.  How could I access it?  Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Jim Weitenhagen
jimw@tv.tv.tek.com