Hard drive crashed, (first time ever and I made a bad mistake) where to look for certain files or did I write over them?

[mellondust]

First time I had to deal with a hard drive crash(actually windows blue screen of death that just rebooted my computer over and over again), and I just installed windows xp again, went through all the usuall set up, and just installed it into the same folder overwriting everything in there. I figured all my folders on my hard drive will still be there so no problem. Well my wife saved everything she has ever done to the desktop and that must be saved in the windows directory which I installed into.

My question is did the windows installation write over all that data, or is data recovery still possible. I realize that I should have pulled the hard drive and put it in my other computer and copied all the files over but too late for that now. I don't have much experience with this so any advice or how to's would be great.

thanks

**Update**

I confirmed that the files I want are saved in a folder in documents and settings as a few people here correctly stated. I used GetDataBack demo program to find them on the hard drive which is currently a slave on my computer. I don't want to spend $80 on this program to get my stuff back if there is another way. I have tried multiple programs and this is the only one that actually found what I was looking for. I can even pull up pictures and view them while the other programs found a bunch of coded jibberish. The problem I am having concering the folder is copied from my last post.

"When I right click and go to properties there are only three tabs:General, Sharing, and customize. The only options with any relevance when I right click are 'properties' and 'sharing and security' which both bring up the same three tab screen. In the general tab, advanced brings up a box that has archive and index attributes and compress or encrypt attributes.

There is no securities tab in any of these options. Do I have a setting somewhere else that is hidding this. This is xp home edition not pro if that makes a difference. "

There has got to be a way to access this folder. No matter what I try I get an access denied error. I know for a fact the data is in that folder, but windows will not let me access it.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Restoring from backup is the easiest thing to do.

Also, check C:\documents and settings\ for an old profile or something.

 

[mellondust]

I don't think that will work, I installed windows into the same folder so all the folders in documents and settings are in their new condition with nothing in them.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: mellondust
I don't think that will work, I installed windows into the same folder so all the folders in documents and settings are in their new condition with nothing in them.

It was worth a shot. I know I've done in place repairs (install windows over itself) and my data's still around... are you sure you didn't format?

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: mellondust
I don't think that will work, I installed windows into the same folder so all the folders in documents and settings are in their new condition with nothing in them.

Windows will not overwrite those folders. If you have an account with the same name as the old it will create a new folder with a .000 extension.

You may have formatted during the install.

 

[dawks]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: mellondust
I don't think that will work, I installed windows into the same folder so all the folders in documents and settings are in their new condition with nothing in them.

Windows will not overwrite those folders. If you have an account with the same name as the old it will create a new folder with a .000 extension.

You may have formatted during the install.

I'll second that. On windows XP, files placed on the desktop are stored in C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Desktop. Not in C:\Windows\Desktop, unless you configured it that way. (I think Windows98 does this though).
If you just did a reinstall or repair, the Users folder should still be there with its old data. If you formatted, it will not.

 

[mellondust]

I don't seem to be seeing the old data in those folder. I don't remember at any point during the reinstall formating, would it do this on it's own? The data was just saved in folders on the desktop under the default user. There is one folder in the documents and settings that could possibly be it, but when I click on it, it gives me an error and says access is denied to that folder.

If it is not in any current folder, would some sort of file recovery software be the next route to go. I would like to determine for sure if it is there before I spend $40 or $50 on some data recovery software.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Right click on the directory that is giving you the error, select properties. Select the Security tab, click on advanced near the bottom. Click on the owner tab, select your current user in the box labeled "Change owner to:" and hit apply. Then try to access it again.

 

[Shawn]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Right click on the directory that is giving you the error, select properties. Select the Security tab, click on advanced near the bottom. Click on the owner tab, select your current user in the box labeled "Change owner to:" and hit apply. Then try to access it again.

Yep. That's most likely the folder with your data in it.

 

[Smilin]

I'll 3rd that.

Grab ownership and Find out what's in that folder.

 

[mellondust]

I checked the folder and it has 0kb of data in it, but I still can't gain access to it. I don't think it is there. Any other ideas. Thanks for the help so far.

 

[dawks]

It will report 0kb and 0 files if you don't have access to it or its subfolders/files. Be sure to take ownership of all files and subfolders, and reset the permissions on all of them so your current user account has full control.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: mellondust
I checked the folder and it has 0kb of data in it, but I still can't gain access to it. I don't think it is there. Any other ideas. Thanks for the help so far.

Follow previous instructions for taking ownership of that folder and giving yourself permissions. Don't ask for the next idea when you haven't completed the first (that three people agreed was the next course of action). 🙂

Also, it is very likely that there is no next course of action. Windows will NOT overwrite those folders unless you choose to format during setup.

 

[mellondust]

Ok, from the last couple of posts it is possible that it could be there, but like I said before, I still can't gain access to it. I pulled the hard drive and have it as a slave in my current computer and still the same problem.

When I right click and go to properties there are only three tabs:General, Sharing, and customize. The only options with any relevance when I right click are 'properties' and 'sharing and security' which both bring up the same three tab screen. In the general tab, advanced brings up a box that has archive and index attributes and compress or encrypt attributes.

There is no securities tab in any of these options. Do I have a setting somewhere else that is hidding this. This is xp home edition not pro if that makes a difference.

Thanks again

 

[Smilin]

Change your folder view settings and disable simple file sharing. You should get a security tab.

 

[dawks]

Originally posted by: mellondust
There is no securities tab in any of these options. Do I have a setting somewhere else that is hidding this. This is xp home edition not pro if that makes a difference.

Originally posted by: Smilin
Change your folder view settings and disable simple file sharing. You should get a security tab.

Will he get the security tab on XP Home? I thought advanced file permissions are not available in XP Home.. I've never really used it so im not sure. That might be part of the problem.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: dawks

Originally posted by: mellondust
There is no securities tab in any of these options. Do I have a setting somewhere else that is hidding this. This is xp home edition not pro if that makes a difference.

Originally posted by: Smilin
Change your folder view settings and disable simple file sharing. You should get a security tab.

Will he get the security tab on XP Home? I thought advanced file permissions are not available in XP Home.. I've never really used it so im not sure. That might be part of the problem.

I can't say I'm very familiar with xphome myself but I'll still stick by my answer. It does use the same NTFS and local security as all other flavors of NT.

 

[lxskllr]

If the other tips don't work for you but you think there's good files to recover I've used this PC inspector It's a free file recovery tool that I've used in the past. I saw this handyrecovery on another forum. You have full functioning software for a 30 day trial. I haven't used it myself, but it was highly recommended by another person.