Data recovery

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xven

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Hi. Just this morning my dad managed to "install" windows on my computer which already had windows xp running perfectly. Let me elaborate. A few day's ago I had put the xp os cd in the drive and forgotten about it. This isn't a problem because I never turn my computer off, only stand by. Somehow it did shutdown and upon reboot (Cd drive was primary) asked if windows needed to be installed. My dad isn't the brightest, so he went ahead with it all up till the point of the cd key request. When I woke up he told me about it and I was enraged.

I have a 160 gig HD, of which 90% was full. Now in order to install he must have overwritten the drive partioning. So does this mean all my data is shot? When I try to get it to start it keeps prompting me to install the setup cd to continue installation. If I cancel it reboots and does the same. Is there anyway of getting this to stop so it can just load the normal os or am I too late? If I go through with installation, will there be anyway of recovering my files. I have some very important stuff I need for school, work, not to mention tons of pictures and home videos. Nothing has been backed up, no restore points or anything like that. You guys have a take on this? Is data retrieval possible?

Absolutely any help is appreciated.
 
did you have more partitions before? if thats the case id think xp would just install over the xp partition again.

If you just had 1 big partition with everything on he might have formatted it at the start of installing xp :( which could mean data is lost.

You might be able to install xp and use a data recovery software to retrieve some of your files, unless it is overwritten the data is still there.
 
Thank you, I am about to try just that. Any recommendations on the data recovery software? Music, videos all can be downloaded again, that is not my concern. I need the pics and documents that are immensely important. Thanks again baronvongogo, I'll let you guys know how it goes. I'm still open to other suggestions.

Oh and there was just one big partition. According to him, he chose to "repair" windows not reinstall. Hopefully something will come off the data recovery. I feel so helpless right now.
 
hope I'm not wrong! :eek: maybe you should wait till someone more qualified can suggest a course of action. And nope I don't no any data recovery program sadly. Although I'm sure someone will post here soon with such software.
 
Thank for the help guys. This is my current situation. I tried to install window and the partition was found and the exact size of what it was. However, windows xp will not load or repair. I would more than likely have to reinstall and there isn't much space to create another partition, hence I would have to write over my old partition. Is there any way to acess the hd if windows is not installed. As in, if I hooked it up to another computer and tried to read off it? Keep in mind, an OS is not installed on the hd I will be trying to read. In short, will I be able to get access to the hd with no OS if I hooked it up to another computer? Or does the hd have to have an os on it to be accessed? Is there anyway to install windows withut deleting the partition?

Thank you in advance. You guys have been a big help.
 
Amazing! I'll get another hd and install windows on it. So in essense, I should be able to access my original hd regardless of no OS on it right? Would it just show up as one of the drives in my computer or do I have to do something to more to get access? I mean, just identify both the hd's in bios, install windows on the new one, and all my data on the previous one will appear in the drive, correct? The partition is intact. Repairing windows doesn't seem to work, so I'll have to take this route. All this sounds good?

Thank you guys sooo much. Honestly, I couldn't ask for anything more than my hd data safe and accessable. All the help thus far has really been appreciated much.
 
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.
 
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