Recovering Old Data?

[Psychodic_Greak]

Hi all, I have a question...

Last weekend I went to my uncles, and thought I was doing him a favor by rebooting his AUDIO, but i learned something... anything that says BOOT means deleting everything. Is there a way that I can get everything that I deleted back? if there is can you please explain?

Edit: he has a 2001/2002 EMachine 192mb of RAM Windows Millenium Edition.

[Force Flow]

AUDIO?

If you are talking about erased data, try slaving te HDD to another machine (but don't write to the drive!) try some of these progs: http://www.e-evidence.info/other.html

[GaryRouth]

I confess I'm a little confused (more than usual, anyway) - - - when you say boot and audio together I generally think of Country Western, not Windows Me

Did you:
1) uninstall his audio drivers by accident?
2) delete a folder by accident?
3) run a Recovery Disk by accident?
4) "other"?

If your answer is #1, you can try running the built-in system file recovery program in Windows Me, called System Restore. It's in "Help and Support", and has a pretty good help file that explains how it works [basically you just start the program & pick a restore point from before your latest adventure]

If your answer is #2, you can hope that it's still in the Recycle Bin and restore it from there. [or proceed to force-flow's datarecovery links]

If your answer is #3, that data is quite possibly lost and gone forever, unless your uncle had made backups previously - But some of the data recovery programs might be able to find some files.

If "other" then post again with a few more details.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[mikeL]

Psychodic_Greak
Here's a file recovery tool also, looks pretty good, although I haven't had the chance to use it (YET).

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

[Psychodic_Greak]

Well, I ran a boot CD for the Audio on his computer because his mike wasn't working properly. So, when I ran the cd i thought it was only going to remove the files preventing the microphone from working properly, that is the only reason i went through with the process. so basically his HD went back to Default first day of purchase use, instead of just removing the files infecting the microphone.

[avx]

This is the problem I was talking about before, you told me not to write to the disk either, but like I said, they already reinstalled the OS, so there is no hope, he has got to start from scratch...

Hopefully you have learned something Kevin...

[Force Flow]

Right. Once the HDD has already been writen over, that's that.

What were you doing? Using a recovery CD?

[GaryRouth]

Sure sounds like the reformat/reinstall type of Recovery CD. Sorry we couldn't warn you sooner. Some Recovery sets have different strategies: they allow you to pick and choose what you'd like to restore (some even have 3 different disks: one for drivers, one for bundled applications [like home/office programs], and one for the operating system). Seems like the one-disk "Ghost"-type image is getting more popular with vendors, which is too bad: it's not very flexible. Only one choice with a "Ghost" image: back to ground zero.

Not the worst situation, really: since everything should be working OK now. [just have your uncle make a few backups from time to time]

Best of Luck
. . . Gary