recovery software

[paydaymom]

Ok, since I was already in this section I thought of a second ? What software would you recommend to recover files? It is on a windows 98se hard drive that has been reformatted.

[sgtspector]

I can recommend http://www.stellarinfo.com/partition-recovery.htm It isnt cheap but it works. Try the demo to see if can find your missing info first.

[paydaymom]

Thanks, I will do this. To me, that is worth recovering all the pics of my kids. I thought I had backed up my pics but when I put the CD in it didn't work. From now I will check right then.

**OK, I downloaded this and was reading the directions which say to hook the drive up as a slave drive. Is this necessary on a computer that has just been reformatted?

[sgtspector]

I would suggest you do it the way they recommend. You will want to have a "clean" target drive to copy the files to. It could save you restoring any system files that you have already re-installed. You can try it if you've just re-installed and dont fear losing anything but you complicate the procedure and each time you copy files to the recovery drive you will risk losing the data you want to recover. I hope that makes sense I am a little tired right now.

[glc]

Before you BUY something, try the free PC Inspector. It should be able to recover from a simple reformat. If that doesn't work, you can usually get free demos of the good commercial packages. ALL data recovery should be done with the drive mounted in another computer as an additional drive, with the data recovery software installed on that computer's main hard drive, and adequate space on that drive or another drive in that computer to recover the files to. The recovery target CAN be an external drive as long as it mounts with a drive letter. If you have done *anything* with the reformatted drive, the odds of a successful recovery are greatly diminished.

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm