I did fdisk and removed the ext3 partition on my 500GB external USB drive, thinking I was working on a usb stick instead. ugh.
then I did 'mkdosfs' on it. ugh ugh.
Before messing with it any more at all, what good ideas can you all suggest for trying to get my data back?
Please don't tell me it's all gone (though I"m afraid it is).
TestDisk http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
TestDisk can
* Fix partition table, recover deleted partition * Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup * Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector * Fix FAT tables * Rebuild NTFS boot sector * Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup * Fix MFT using MFT mirror * Locate ext2/ext3 Backup SuperBlock * Undelete files from FAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem * Copy files from deleted FAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3 partitions.