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

Hi Stargazer, You can try this http://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

---

eMachines T5212.... Intel Pentium D 945 3.4Ghz..... evga 9800 GT 512 Mb PCI-E video card..... Realtec HD audio......2 Gb Crucial 667 Mhz DDR2 memory..... Lite on CD RW; DVD RW, DL,& Lightscribe optical drive...... Windows XP MCE 2005....... Antec Basiq 500w PSU......200 Gb Parallel ATA HDD.........Samsung 22" WS SyncMaster 2243BWX Monitor.

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

---

eMachines T5212.... Intel Pentium D 945 3.4Ghz..... evga 9800 GT 512 Mb PCI-E video card..... Realtec HD audio......2 Gb Crucial 667 Mhz DDR2 memory..... Lite on CD RW; DVD RW, DL,& Lightscribe optical drive...... Windows XP MCE 2005....... Antec Basiq 500w PSU......200 Gb Parallel ATA HDD.........Samsung 22" WS SyncMaster 2243BWX Monitor.

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.

---

eMachines T5212.... Intel Pentium D 945 3.4Ghz..... evga 9800 GT 512 Mb PCI-E video card..... Realtec HD audio......2 Gb Crucial 667 Mhz DDR2 memory..... Lite on CD RW; DVD RW, DL,& Lightscribe optical drive...... Windows XP MCE 2005....... Antec Basiq 500w PSU......200 Gb Parallel ATA HDD.........Samsung 22" WS SyncMaster 2243BWX Monitor.

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.

---

eMachines T5212.... Intel Pentium D 945 3.4Ghz..... evga 9800 GT 512 Mb PCI-E video card..... Realtec HD audio......2 Gb Crucial 667 Mhz DDR2 memory..... Lite on CD RW; DVD RW, DL,& Lightscribe optical drive...... Windows XP MCE 2005....... Antec Basiq 500w PSU......200 Gb Parallel ATA HDD.........Samsung 22" WS SyncMaster 2243BWX Monitor.

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

---

eMachines T5212.... Intel Pentium D 945 3.4Ghz..... evga 9800 GT 512 Mb PCI-E video card..... Realtec HD audio......2 Gb Crucial 667 Mhz DDR2 memory..... Lite on CD RW; DVD RW, DL,& Lightscribe optical drive...... Windows XP MCE 2005....... Antec Basiq 500w PSU......200 Gb Parallel ATA HDD.........Samsung 22" WS SyncMaster 2243BWX Monitor.