Data recovery question

slipd · 30 Oct 2015 at 14:12

Hi guys,

A pal recently asked me to have a look at an ageing laptop of his to see what was wrong with it; wouldn't turn on etc., which I did and without spending more than 5 minutes on it, concluded that it was shot... happy with my 'free' conclusion he asked me about getting all his files of it so I whipped out the drive just to see if it was still accessible, which it was. In the meantime he found his original warranty extension of the laptop so I gave it to him back but without backing up his data.

Anyway, he took the laptop to the place in town where they all wear purple and they wrote the laptop off and gave him credit. It was the motherboard apparently. So he's just given me the laptop to get the stuff off the hard drive only for me to find its had a brand new install of Windows made over the top of it - naturally all of his stuff has gone :eek:

He's fuming with the place in town but that's with him, what can I do if anything, to get some if not all of his stuff back? I've not got a lot of experience with data recovery but apps like Recuva have helped me out in the past. Any other suggestions or approaches?

Thanks.

bledd · 30 Oct 2015 at 14:21

A. He should keep a backup.
B. You should have backed up his files.

Mujja · 30 Oct 2015 at 14:24

How was the HDD reimaged with Windows when the computer wouldn't turn on (motherboard fault). Did they swap out the HDD?

slipd · 30 Oct 2015 at 14:26

bledd. said:
A. He should keep a backup.
B. You should have backed up his files.

Haha, yeah... I've told him countless times about backing up etc, but he's never listened! Sometimes it takes something like this to make you realise that your data is actually important and should be looked after :rolleyes:

I learnt the hard way; re-writing large parts of my IT degree at uni! Oh the irony...

I feel absolutely no guilt having not backed him up when I had the chance, I literally had the laptop for an hour and then he had it back.

slipd · 30 Oct 2015 at 14:27

Mujja said:
How was the HDD reimaged with Windows when the computer wouldn't turn on (motherboard fault). Did they swap out the HDD?

Nope, the drive looks the same, I'm guessing they imaged it outside of the of laptop.

Craig321 · 30 Oct 2015 at 15:44

You said the laptop was written off and he got credit, so he got a brand new laptop? Have you been back to them to see if there's a chance they can give it back to pull the data, or pull the data for you?

Tell him to get CrashPlan or Backblaze for the future. No need for an external backup and works quietly in the background.