Disaster Recovery

[FordLorider]

My question is it even possible. I Windows formatted WinME on FAT32 and put WinXP with NTFS on the computer and of course now it would be nice to have some of that old data back. Specifically the Outlook Express Address Book, old Outlook Express email and Favorites. Is there even software that makes this possible?

 

[FordLorider]

I'm surprised nobody is familiar with this stuff. I believe getting your data back is a function of whether the space has been overwritten? Any ideas or software I can try?

 

[Czar]

I'm not optimistic since you formatted your disk and put windows on it along with lots of other data

 

[Maximilian]

I agree with czar. To retrieve lost data costs a lot of £££ apparently, and i dont believe the service is even available to the public.

A bit off topic, but i just did the same thing, windows ME is a tough cookie! It just wouldnt die! Wouldnt let me format the drive, it killed the first copy of XP i installed over it. After that there was still a few hundres mb's of unaccounted space that was taken up.... Dosent die honorably that os 😛

 

[FordLorider]

Any other ideas?

 

[Gooberlx2]

I agree with Czar as well. You formatted, which basically set up the used space to be written over. Installing Windows XP may have just done that. You're probably looking at using a professional service, which may not even matter if all you get are fragments of the files, with the rest being toast....and then you'll be out money anyway.

My suggestion is to cut your losses and enjoy the fact that you got rid of one of the worst OSes ever made.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Do a search, this stuff gets asked all the time.

Your best option is to restore from backups. If that isn't possible (corrupted backups, stupid little brother, you stupidly didn't make any), r-studio has been recommended to me.

 

[FordLorider]

Thanks Monkey, at least you got some software for me to look into. Any other suggestions?

 

[dnuggett]

Run a live version of Linux called Helix.