I recently had a crash with my P.C which involved my hard drive being re-formatted. Windows would not re-boot and I was told that a destructive recovery was the only solution. I lost EVERYTHING on the P.C. Gutted.

Is there any way of recovering any of those files or are they lost for good ?

Not much help, but at least three recovery software progs exist - from memory. I know this from considering security previously, i.e. that simply reformatting the hard drive before selling a computer on will not stop a recipient from recovering any data. No data can be recovered if it has been overwritten though. Hence shredding software exists to ensure complete deletion - although nothing is ever totally deleted it seems.

Whether such recovery software programs would work for you I really wouldn't know, since they no doubt all have their limitations and also the nature of your crash might have a bearing I guess.

I might have a page in my file somewhere about this, but it could take me some time to find it... I'll have a look tomorrow, but Googling might be quicker TBH.

Best

Mo

The program 'Stella Pheonix' may help you. It costs, but have a search for info about it.

Other than that, I don't have any knowledge of other data recovery programs. A professional data recovery company would be the best overall solution, if the data is valuable enough. If not then it might not be good VFM, as their prices aren't particularly cheap.

HTH,

Steve

I use a file recovery program (freeware I think), can't find the name of it the moment though works wonders on flash disks (Makes you think twice about taking slightly dodgy photos on a shared camera and thinking that a format of the card will destroy the evidence :eek: ). Should work the same on hard drives. You'll need a working PC to be able to run it. I'll try to find the name.

Probably the first thing to say is that if you do get a problem like this, don't simply reformat and reinstall if you want to recover the files. Don't use the drive until you can get it into a working system and attempt a recovery of the data.

Do you know the names of the files you want to recover, or is it just everything you've accumulated (eg in my documents)?

Thanks to you all. Appreciated.

If your pc crashes go out and buy a new hard drive.....then when all is up and running put the okd disc in as a slave and take your info off..........I know in this case it's a bit late ....but I found out the hard way too

Regular backups are the key to avoid situations like this. Either to CD, DVD, or the method I prefer due to lots of data an external HD.

Quiet often if XP gets broken, before doing a destructive install try a repair which is basically installing XP over the top of XP. That tends to fix driver and file related issues although it cant fix the user registry if its broke. It fixes the system registry though if thats the problem.

If that doesnt work then do the new HD install as already mentioned.

Try the freeware tools, they may help. Do it before installing to much on the pc though otherwise you may overwrite what is left of your files.

You could try the program "Recover my Files". It's not free, but is very good.

I would always recommend partitioning any hard drive, so even if the O/S screws up and needs a reformat the other partitions are untouched. However, that doesn't save you from a total hard drive fault/failure, only backing up to seperate media can help there (I use dvdrw)