HELP...HAD A DISASTER

Griff7520 · 17 Jun 2019 at 20:45

Any one suggest a data recovery software, I have lost every photo, music file document...everything. They were on a secondary drive but when I did a system reset on my system drive it has wiped evey drive on my pc....gutted at the minute...any help much appreciated

AHarvey · 17 Jun 2019 at 21:32

http://kickassundelete.sourceforge.net/

https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

I've used both of those 2 in the past on friends systems but Techradar has an up to date list of some here:

https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/the-best-free-file-recovery-software

brendy · 17 Jun 2019 at 21:57

Pandora recovery and undelete have worked well for me in the past.

pcfarrar · 17 Jun 2019 at 22:11

I've always used GetDataBack, going back years. Only last week I used it to recover 95% of 800GB on a USB drive that someone had accidently formatted.

https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

jaybee · 17 Jun 2019 at 22:16

pcfarrar said:
I've always used GetDataBack, going back years. Only last week I used it to recover 95% of 800GB on a USB drive that someone had accidently formatted.

https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

Seconded. Outstanding software when others have only been able to read back random (and still corrupt) raw files with no file structure.

xb8browney · 17 Jun 2019 at 22:20

Doesn't windows create a Windows.old folder?

Griff7520 · 17 Jun 2019 at 22:44

thanks for the help guys....I am getting them back....but its going to take a while...maybe a long night

Stephanie Peterson · 17 Jun 2019 at 23:13

See when (if) you get them back.
For gods sake setup a proper backup.

moogle · 18 Jun 2019 at 00:03

No one's mentioned Piroform's Recuva? Pretty slick utility and free!

Griff7520 · 18 Jun 2019 at 01:33

well got all my pictures and music back and my documents so much relieved now....used a prog called Puran file recovery which is working quite well......

Kelt · 18 Jun 2019 at 10:01

Another vote for GetDataBack from me as well.

Worked recoveriing files from a failed HDD where many others I tried failed.

Glad you got yours back OP.

labcoattech · 18 Jun 2019 at 11:35

I know it's not much help now but you really need to backup your files to either a USB hard drive or upload them to the cloud.

Griff7520 · 18 Jun 2019 at 12:17

well my files were backed up on 2 hard drives on my pc...but what happened yesterday was I installed a new motherboard and instead of doing a complete reinstall of windows I did a reset via windows...it asked me if I wanted to do just a clean install on c windows drive but when I said yes and let it run it actually formatted all my drives so when it finished and I looked at my drives and saw them all empty I was gutted....should have unplugged my secondary drives and just left the m.2 system drive plugged in....I don't know how it happened I was sure I pressed the correct options when starting the reset but obviously not....still live and learn....just glad I got all my photos back....got to be 20 years worth of memories there.

Vimes · 18 Jun 2019 at 15:47

^^^^^^ Great that you got them back but also think about an off site backup as well.

labcoattech · 18 Jun 2019 at 15:56

Always best to disconnect non OS drives when upgrading / installing OS

AHarvey · 18 Jun 2019 at 17:36

For photos and video I have them auto backup to google drive as well, nice easy unlimited cloud storage

Griff7520 · 18 Jun 2019 at 17:42

AHarvey said:
For photos and video I have them auto backup to google drive as well, nice easy unlimited cloud storage

thought you was limited to so much space or do you pay for more

AHarvey · 18 Jun 2019 at 17:50

Griff7520 said:
thought you was limited to so much space or do you pay for more

There are 2 tiers, paid and free.

Free offers unlimited photos and video as long as they are under or you don't mind them being shrunk to 16mp in size (or video length). I think once you go over this size the limit for free space is 15gb.

I've over 23,000 photos backed up to a google account that's only used as a backup for my wife and I to save images.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/19/18271015/google-drive-photos-storage-space-how-to-get-more

demonix · 18 Jun 2019 at 17:59

xb8browney said:
Doesn't windows create a Windows.old folder?

Only for OS upgrades and not full system resets.

an0nym0us · 18 Jun 2019 at 18:42

AHarvey said:
There are 2 tiers, paid and free.

Free offers unlimited photos and video as long as they are under or you don't mind them being shrunk to 16mp in size (or video length). I think once you go over this size the limit for free space is 15gb.

I've over 23,000 photos backed up to a google account that's only used as a backup for my wife and I to save images.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/19/18271015/google-drive-photos-storage-space-how-to-get-more

I would also recommend using the free unlimited option of Google Photos.

Sorry, got to bring up the classic tweezers dig at The Verge!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0vmQOO4WLI4