I have a Lenovo x60 with Vista Enterprise installed. I recently did a
system store, which freezed on me. I thus rebooted it, but it failed,
and an error message appeared saying that "hal.dll" file missing or
corrupted. Since I didn't have the Vista installation disk handy, I
tried to load my old windows xp, and managed to get it installed,
under a different directory. But once I logged in the xp, I could see
the old data file folders, and nothing was inside each folder (0
byte). Next, I tried to reinstall Vista, hoping I could recover my
data. When I put the disk in, it did say that it detected old windows,
and would move all old windows files to a new directory called
"windows.old". I proceeded. After the new vista was installed, I
logged in, still the same happened: I could see the file folders
(names), but couldn't find any files.

I have a 120 g hard drive. Now it shows it has 71 g free space. Based
on this information, I believe my data files are still on the disk. I
also tried several data recovery softwares, none of them worked. I am
desperate. Could anyone help? Is there a way for me to go back to my
old vista and fix that? Do I have to do that in order to get access to
my data? Are they still there?
Thanks a lot.

Could anyone help?

Ming
On Sep 5, 9:09 am, mingtoro...@gmail.com wrote:
> I have a Lenovo x60 with Vista Enterprise installed. I recently did a
> system store, which freezed on me. I thus rebooted it, but it failed,
> and an error message appeared saying that "hal.dll" file missing or
> corrupted. Since I didn't have the Vista installation disk handy, I
> tried to load my old windows xp, and managed to get it installed,
> under a different directory. But once I logged in the xp, I could see
> the old data file folders, and nothing was inside each folder (0
> byte). Next, I tried to reinstall Vista, hoping I could recover my
> data. When I put the disk in, it did say that it detected old windows,
> and would move all old windows files to a new directory called
> "windows.old". I proceeded. After the new vista was installed, I
> logged in, still the same happened: I could see the file folders
> (names), but couldn't find any files.
>
> I have a 120 g hard drive. Now it shows it has 71 g free space. Based
> on this information, I believe my data files are still on the disk. I
> also tried several data recovery softwares, none of them worked. I am
> desperate. Could anyone help? Is there a way for me to go back to my
> old vista and fix that? Do I have to do that in order to get access to
> my data? Are they still there?
> Thanks a lot.

On Sep 5, 5:51 pm, ming <mingtoro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Could anyone help?
>

You should certainly contact Aurora Data Recovery. They have over 20
years experience in recovery of lost or deleted files in situations
such as yours. Substantial price reduction is applied for private
customers (non-commercial)

They have web address http://www.aurora.se
You can choose from several languages if necessary.

Aurora work from 09:00 until 23:00 every day of the year, so calling,
or sending an email should get you help within minutes.

One last piece of well intentioned advice: DIY ( do-it -yourself ) is
as absurd as DIY veterinary surgery on the family cat or dog. I doubt
anyone would even dream of the idea, but daily we speak to many people
who have followed unwise advice on the Net and only made matters far
worse.

Rule #1 Never, ever, for whatever reason, run a drive that is making
unusual sounds. In most cases the sound is the read heads inside the
disk drive scraping away your valuable data. Any serious DR company
investigates the media surface in a clean room laboratory BEFORE
applying power to the drive.

Rule #2 Never, ever download any recovery software onto the damages
drive, or in your case, the functioning drive. The chances are
considerable that you will be writing OVER your valuable information.

Rule #3 Always ask for reference clients. ( if the data is
important )

Rule #4 Beware of DR companies with answering machines, mobile
telephones or 09-17 ( 9 to 5 ) office hours. Serious DR companies
operate just like the acute accident department of a modern hospital.
Non-stop - every day.



Good luck !

Sandro
customer service
Aurora IT Systems AB

You have reinstalled Windows on the same drive twice and want to
recover your data. I guess its fairly very difficult to recover your
data using data recovery as it might had happened that your data has
been overwritten or may have got corrupted. But still you can try with
Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery Software. Download the demo
version from: http://www.stellarinfo.com/partition-recovery.htm scan
your hard drive and see if it does shows any data or not. If the demo
shows the recovered data then go and get the full version to save your
data.