Did I really lose everything?

[eminemshow3677]

Hello all, so I got the blue screen containing stopx000024 and constant cycle of restarting so I read around the net and there was a page saying to boot up with my windows cd and repair from there. I booted up with the disc and it started installation immediately and I wasn't sure if it was reinstalling the windows files or what. When it was done and restarted it took me to a fresh windows. So did it format my C: drive during installation? I really need my stuff back all my school work was on the C drive. Please help!!!! Thanks

 

[Jayce]

Did you reinstall Windows? Or did you do a Windows Repair?

They are two very different things, which will dictate whether or not you tanked your files or not.

 

[eminemshow3677]

I guess it reinstalled even though it never prompted anything and just started goin to town

 

[Slaymate]

Look at the files on your hard drive. Only you can say whether your data is there or not. Hopefully you'll just have to re-install your apps but your saved files will be there. Good Luck

 

[Ste]

Please learn to back up your data on a regular basis via varied media formats, this way you never have to worry about recovery. Just copying over.

 

[KSoD]

From the sounds of it, you lost the information. Since it sounds like it was a reinstall. You will be very lucky if you can use software like Recuva to get the lost data back. But i wouldnt hold my breath on that.

Since basically formatting of a hard drive can still retain that information as long as nothing else is written to that drive. But since you had Windows written to that drive the chances that nothing was written to the area where your school information was stored is almost 0%, i wouldnt get your hopes up that you can recover that data.

Another important lesson as to why Backups should be done, especially on data that is critical that you dont lose.

 

[Jayce]

Another important lesson as to why Backups should be done, especially on data that is critical that you dont lose.

I'd like to further emphasize the importance of this, but also the ease of this as well. Doing backups doesn't require a network administrator to handle. If you have another hard drive you can put in your computer, or perhaps a flash drive, external hard drive, etc, you can do backups very easily.

If you want to set up a more automated way to handle backups, you can plop in another hard drive to your computer and utilize free applications known as SyncToy or SyncBack SE. That way once the folder pairs are set up, you can run that program and your data will be copied to another drive.

I personally am a backup freak, utilizing a file server at home with 4 drives in it to do backups of EVERYBODY's data in the house on a nightly basis. It's bailed me out twice and other family members out about 5 times in the last two years. You never know when you'll get that fatal error or your hard drive tanks on you.

I hope you consider looking further into making backups in the future. There are many users here who would be glad to help you get a setup that works right if you want to pursue it.