Data Recovery Help

Reginald · 9 Sep 2009 at 01:13

Hey guys,

Right, my other half has deleted all my holiday pictures and pics of his dads 60th from his laptop. He reinstalled windows and didn't back these files up. Genius I hear you say.

We've tried stuff like EASEUS datarecovery wizard, prodata doctor from techddi.com, discdoctors undelete,

Does anyone have any tips on how to get them back?

Any help much appreciated! And if you don't have a clue then tips on how to kill the little **** also much appreciated!

shauncr91 · 9 Sep 2009 at 01:19

I've found "Recuva" to be a very good tool, I've managed to recover data back from 2003 using it

grudas · 9 Sep 2009 at 01:26

i've used getdata recover my files.. that's how it's called done the job fine.. a few photos are a bit messed up but other than that it was good

silversurfer · 9 Sep 2009 at 01:35

http://www.runtime.org/

Reginald · 9 Sep 2009 at 01:44

thanks guys will give it a go

Rroff · 9 Sep 2009 at 01:46

Depending on the version of windows and how the reinstall was done it might have moved the files to a windows.old folder.

wannabedamned · 9 Sep 2009 at 01:52

R-Studio is the best, but its not free.

AntiHeroUK · 9 Sep 2009 at 01:53

I can vouch for Recuva. Tried it out a few times and it worked well.

Stelly · 9 Sep 2009 at 02:06

OUCH! always always! backup

Stelly

Reginald · 9 Sep 2009 at 02:11

^^ I know!!!!!! Well we put the pictures on the desktop from sd card together...by together I mean I watched and he did... then he put them into folders...still on the desktop. A week or so later he decides to reinstall windows and picks a couple of files from his desktop but decides he doesnt need a bunch of them. Is it possible to be so dense? rant rant rant etc etc

Thanks for all your help..Im recovering a few pics with this program. Feeling slightly less like I want to cut it off..sorry G-MAN

BigglesPiP · 9 Sep 2009 at 02:14

For future backups, I have a stack of re-writeable DVDs, I periodically run a backup job against them for various important files, then I try to keep the stack where my computer isn't.

V4NT0M · 9 Sep 2009 at 02:14

Meh everyone makes mistakes.

floatindolphin · 9 Sep 2009 at 08:30

Go on holiday again and retake the photos. Your Dad will have another Birthday next year, take some piccys of him with his cake then. Problem solved.

No-One · 9 Sep 2009 at 08:33

Might it also be possible to recover them from the memory card?

sparkymark75 · 9 Sep 2009 at 09:11

Until you've recovered the files, try and use the laptop as little as possible to avoid Windows overwriting the files on the drive.

Hodders · 9 Sep 2009 at 09:27

It is also a good idea in the future to have files in more than one place - external USB hard disks are brilliant for this.

Hope you get something back...

rsatd · 9 Sep 2009 at 09:29

Multi-partition some... One os partition, the other data. Simple, no more lost data from re-installs. (Doesn't help to get prictures back mind)

mrk · 9 Sep 2009 at 09:33

If the files were deleted then the drive formatted then windows reinstalled then you're not going to be getting the data back in any complete form at all because the blocks on the disk will have been overwritten several times during windows install as windows setup does its thing.

Multi partitions are OK but hardly a safeguard as people often accidentally the whole drive and then facepalm.jpg.

A separate drive for documents and data is the best option and then run weekly backups off it to a USB drive so even if a drive dies, you have backups.

rsatd · 9 Sep 2009 at 09:37

mrk said:
If the files were deleted then the drive formatted then windows reinstalled then you're not going to be getting the data back in any complete form at all because the blocks on the disk will have been overwritten several times during windows install as windows setup does its thing.

Partial recovery may be possible, but need specialised software. Don't know of any though. Formatting does not delete the data, just clears the file allocation table. And even then I think it only marks those blocks as free to use not even clears them. Overwriting some will cause damage though, but you kind of thinking that when windows installs itself, it will put itself mostly in the same place on the hdd anyway.

Multi partitions are OK but hardly a safeguard as people often accidentally the whole drive and then facepalm.jpg.

Well, over the past 16 years or so I been playing with computers, have yet to accidentally the whole drive, so I have no idea what you people do to home machines to accidentally the whole drive... Throw them at passers by?

A separate drive for documents and data is the best option and then run weekly backups off it to a USB drive so even if a drive dies, you have backups.

People are generally too lazy for good practices, and even then you could easily end up with multiple copies of the same thing as well and in process of filtering that remove all copies

mrk · 9 Sep 2009 at 09:45

You'll only end up with multiple copies if you're being a fool - There are plenty of tools though that will Echo copy only changed files and delete removed files keeping both volumes in sync. MS Synctoy is a prime example of this feature.

I just don't believe in partitions, not mainly for the user error side but for the problem that HDDs fail and if a HDD fails then your data partition is gone with it which is why I have firmly believed in individual drives for data, OS and backups as it's far less likely that all drives will die in one go instead of one drive and all partitions.

Partial recovery may be possible as you say but I'm not at all confident in any major success coming out of a full recovery.