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My parents restored their computer before I could get to it. HELP!!!!

D

dalearyous

Senior member
basically my parents had seriously infected unit and did format/install of windows without backing up their data before i could get over there. we need the data off the computer. is it possible to get the data back and which tool do you recommend? they have only installed like 1 other program since windows was finished. any ideas or tips. thanks
 
I'm pretty sure your hosed. Those "PC Restores" format the harddrive, as you are already aware.
The key to file recovery is the block that the data is written to. If you accidentally delete a file you have a good chance at recovery with something like Winternals AdminPak (may it RIP) and others that I can't remember. So long as the data block hasn't been overwritten you most likely can recover. PC Restore, however, probably over-wrote those blocks of data.
I don't know...do a search for undelete software and see if you can find something free.
Good luck
 
Your only hope is most likely a professional restore firm. A quick format of a secondary drive and you might be able to get back the data, a full format of a system drive and then OS install and its very unlikely. You need to shut down the machine NOW, pull the drive, and either (1) send it off to the professionals, or (2) slave it to a second machine and try running a recovery program on it. I'd go for 1, although it will be very expensive.

Tim
 
There are dozens of software solution for your problem. Undelete, RecoverMyFiles, Data Recovery Wizard, Uneraser, Disk Commander, etc.
 
I agree - you're probably out of luck.

Between the format and subsequent restore of data being written to all those areas of the hard drive plus the FAT being updated, I'd say the data left, if any, are likely just fragments of files, ie. in no way complete or usable.
 
ok, but the way i understand data recovery is that when you format the HD, it doesn't write 0s to the HD it just marks that area to be written over. so as long the area hasn't been written over i should be able to grab the data. now if you do a low level format your pretty much screwed but thats not the case here. anyway going to give it a shot.
 
Yes, except what do you think installing Windows does? It overwrites the drive. Then, installing software and windows writing files to the drive on boot also overwrites more of the drive.
 
Originally posted by: dalearyous
ok, but the way i understand data recovery is that when you format the HD, it doesn't write 0s to the HD it just marks that area to be written over. so as long the area hasn't been written over i should be able to grab the data. now if you do a low level format your pretty much screwed but thats not the case here. anyway going to give it a shot.
Click to expand...

You understand correct, but the likelyhood that the data has not been written over at least partially is almost nil.

You may be able to recover some files, but many will more then likely be toast.

Put in in a system as a slave, and try a data recovery program.
 
currently using getdataback for NTFS. scan going to take 45 mins. will post back. btw, i only need like 1 folder recovered
 
wow, getdataback found everything i need. too bad they want me to register it before i can do that which is gonna cost me 80 bucks. going to look for a free one.
 
Why did microsoft stop providing an undelete tool? I remember MS-DOS came with one along with a Win 3.1 version.
 
GDB worked great for me, well worth the $$ when I bought it a few years ago, and its paid for itself a few times since then (by charging others to fix/recover there files)
 
porn, hah, i hope there isn't any on the machine cause its not my computer and i never use the thing. the important files are my dad's.
 
ok so i went ahead and got full version of getdataback and some of the word documents when i open them come up as just a bunch of crazy symbols etc... is the file toast? or is there a convertor out there.
 
The file is toast my friend. It may have found the file, however part of it was overwritten, so now word is only reading parts of a file fragment.
 
Sounds like word thinks it's a .txt file. Make sure you name it with the original name. Also try opening with the same version of word it was created with. Contrary to most of the posts here you can reformat a drive and restore the whole thing using gdb or spinrite. The only thing that won't work is if you change partion sizes before a reformat.
 
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