Data recovery

[xven]

Nope. I did not format recently. It's been formatted the first time I installed windows and never again. This is great news! What a relief. I'm on to getting a new hd and I have already bookmarked that data recovery program for the future.

Well, thanks for taking time out and helping me through this! Been a great educational experience. You guys are life savers! Rock on!

 

[RicoDirenzo]

Not only will that program retore all your data but it will put it all back into the original folders!!

 

[Tox1cThreat]

well did you format your hard drive? if you connect a new one install windows on it. When you connect your old hard drive it`ll just appear in windows as d: or e: or whatever... but if you formatted it then it`ll be empty and you will still need data recovery software.

sort of


if he did quick formatting, than windows probably just broke the links to the data but didnt actually write over the data.

So the easiest way (as was mentioned) is to grab another drive install winXP on it, boot to that drive, access the files, pull them over ( you migh twant to burn them jsut to have backups) and then reintsall XP (again) on the original drive.

you wont bea able to get programs unless their stand alone, but the chances of you getting music/documents/etc is pretty good.. Ive overinstalled a couple times and gotten most everythign back....

basically it works like this

Table of Contents
Operating system......................................................here
this file......................................................................here
that file......................................................................here
another file.................................................................here

here is the location on the hard drive. A quick defrag breaks the part from the TOC to the location so:

Table Of Contents:
--/--/--/--/--/--/--/-/-/--/-/--/-/-/-
operaitng system.........../-/-/-/-/-..........here
this file........../=/-/-/-/-/- here
that file../-/-/-/-//-/-/--/-/.... here
another file .........../-/-//-/----/-/-/ /.//...... here


so the data is still on the drive, the OS jsut doesnt see it because the TOC was erased..


make sense ?

 

[xven]

Yes, I think I got that. What your bascially saying is the memory point locations have been erased and the hard drive doesn't know what is where. Programs I can reinstall, no big there.

Anyway of getting the TOC back in order? Is that what the windows repair option is meant to do? Just out of curiousity. I'm still going with the 2nd hd. Safer way of doing things. Thanks for the clarification.

Oh btw.. RE is an awesome series! Cool sig.

 

[Tox1cThreat]

exactly, as far as getting the TOC back in order... honestly Im not sure..

"here" or where the data was stored, is a physical address on the hard drive. The problem is that when your dad reinstalled the OS we dont know what it wrote over, so if you tried to reestablish the TOC then the computer woudl be looking in a location that might have completely different data (or part thereof)

you can use getdataback and stuff, but it might take a while. Personally I think its a good excuse for your dad to get you a new hard drive ..

 

[RicoDirenzo]

sort of


if he did quick formatting, than windows probably just broke the links to the data but didnt actually write over the data.

So the easiest way (as was mentioned) is to grab another drive install winXP on it, boot to that drive, access the files, pull them over ( you migh twant to burn them jsut to have backups) and then reintsall XP (again) on the original drive.

you wont bea able to get programs unless their stand alone, but the chances of you getting music/documents/etc is pretty good.. Ive overinstalled a couple times and gotten most everythign back....

basically it works like this

Table of Contents
Operating system......................................................here
this file......................................................................here
that file......................................................................here
another file.................................................................here

here is the location on the hard drive. A quick defrag breaks the part from the TOC to the location so:

Table Of Contents:
--/--/--/--/--/--/--/-/-/--/-/--/-/-/-
operaitng system.........../-/-/-/-/-..........here
this file........../=/-/-/-/-/- here
that file../-/-/-/-//-/-/--/-/.... here
another file .........../-/-//-/----/-/-/ /.//...... here


so the data is still on the drive, the OS jsut doesnt see it because the TOC was erased..

The only difference between a quick format and complete is that the formatting protocol for extended format does a surface scan which takes much longer. The format process is exactly the same.

make sense ?

 

[xven]

Good stuff guys. Wow, hard drive prices have really fallen from back in the day. A 250 gig. Sata II 16mb buffer for $95 CND! woo hoo!