Tried to use laptop (Samsung, Windows 7) last night and could not enter password for Windows to start. It worked perfectly the day before. Tried re-entering password several times but no success. Turned it off and left it overnight, switched it on this morning and it started up saying"Preparing computer for first use".

It now works, without needing a password to get in, but everything,and I do mean everything, seems to have been wiped clean, and it is back to a clean system. Anyone have any idea if it is possible to recover anything that was on it prior to it's wobbly?

No, it wasn't backed up!

Chris (from another laptop)

it sounds like in your attempt to get it to work you have inadvertently selected the restore to defaults option when booting the computer. This is all to easy to do and one reason I don't like factory installed windows. Whenever I bought a PC, I always reinstalled windows from a DVD to remove this option.

 

Sadly the data will be lost, since the reinstall is destructive and overwrites the entire HDD with disc image from the manufacturer from the recovery partition.

 

I work in IT looking after PCs and servers all day long, done it for years and the number of people that don't backup their data and then come to us when their computer no longer works expecting miracles is quiet large. We can sometimes get them going again, but if the OS has been restored or the HDD is broken then their is no hope.

 

Backup everything at least once, preferably twice or more and keep the backups in different locations.