[STARGAZER]

Ok. I did something stupid. I have been having problems with windows. Correcting problems usually by just restoring. Well this morn the 'puter completely crashed. Trying to work and fix the 'puter at the same time does not work. Started a system restore. Didn't realized it until it was too late. Now I have a formated hard drive with no data. I need help in recovering the data lost in documents (pictures, videos, tunes). Not so worried about anything but the pictures. Any programs out there that will help me recover those files?
Thanks

[LincolnSpector]

Hi, Stargazer.

I didn't know that System Restore could format the hard drive.

In most cases, the data is still available on a formatted drive. You just need to recover it. I know there are programs available that can recover data from a formatted drive, but I haven't used or tested any of these programs in many, many years. Therefore, I hesitate to recommend one over another. Someone else on the forum probably can.

And if you feel more comfortable paying a professional to do this for you, any PC repair shop should be able to handle this job. You won't need one of the high-end recovery shops, like Drivesavers, since the hdd is probably not physically damaged.

One more thing: If you had decent backups of those photos, you wouldn't be as worried about losing them. First rule of computing: Never have only one copy of anything.

Lincoln

[STARGAZER]

Thank you very much Lincoln. I deserve that lecture on backing up data. I know better. In fact I have a 5 gig external that I purchased 2 months ago and just haven't had time to do it. Been on the road too much.



thanks,

joe

[coastie65]

Hi Stargazer, You can try this www.undelete-plus.com/ . It is free As Lincoln said, I don't know how you managed to reformat the HDD on a system restore as that is not an available option. If you used a recovery CD, then I doubt that the files can be recovered. You can try this utility, though and see if it helps. I have it installed in here "just in case". coastie65

[techie4fun]

Recovering files from a reformatted hard drive can be tough with recovery software . Good luck :p

[coastie65]

Hey techie, Yeah I did a scan with that utility on this thing. With the number files in the thousands it is a good way to drive yourself crazy. coastie

[techie4fun]

coastie65 said:

Hey Knifeblade, Yeah I did a scan with that utility on this thing. With the number files in the thousands it is a good way to drive yourself crazy. coastie

Crazy is an understatement .

[coastie65]

:^0 Yep. Things have been a bit hectic. I sure wasn't paying attention, then again, I keep telling folks I'm so poor, I can't afford to pay attention. Sorry about that. I edited that thing.

[rgreen4]

Unfortunately, I think what he did was use the recovery disc to restore the disc to factory shipped condition. This of course erases everything, I don't think it actually "formats". The recovery disc for my HP laptop (Vista pre-SP) actually won't do that except on a formatted disc, the recovery disc for my HP XP MCE machine (now defunct since it has Vista) would do it.

[coastie65]

I was thinking he probably used the recovery disk. The eMachines recovery disk primarily gave two options, 1) Non Destructive, in which the os is replaced and 2) destructive; in which the HDD is reformatted and the whole shebang, incuding bloatware, is reloaded. In the case of this one all but the OS was on the Partition which no longer exisits and I forgot to make the disks. For some reason, the nondestructive function doesn't work, but the destructive does and you end up with reformatted HDD with just the OS. Then you have to run down all the drivers ( I have them on disk). I bought an installation disk for XP MCE 2005 primarily so I could have the repair capability.

[techie4fun]

I knew you meant to say Techie instead of Knifeblade, but when I said "crazy is an understatement," I was talking about recovery files from a reformatted hard drive. That's fun! :p

[coastie65]

Yeah, once the scan is complete and you have to scroll through thousands of files looking for specific file. :p Not fun.

[STARGAZER]

Hey Thanks everyone. As I stated before I was "multi-tasking" this morn. I had updated a couple of programs yesterday and turned on the home puter this morn. Something went funky and it kept re booting. Hit F10 to recover. Was trying to restore but ending up reformatting with recovery using the XP utility program. All this while making phone calls and on the work puter. Needless to say a big boo boo.

I found a data recovery program. But like coastie stated I'm scrolling through a "bunch" of files trying to save what I want. Still working on it. I was hoping to find an easier way. Oh well.... I will let you know what % I manage to salvage and how this process is working.