Missing data after deleting user accounts at home

Hi,
I have lost all my families documents when I deleted their user accounts
even though I agreed to KEEP FILES. I cannot not find their docs anywhere on
my C:
I have XPon my home computer, and still use my user account.
Of course I made no back-up of files as I read afterwards that I should do.
Can anyone Help?

Stuart wrote:
> Hi,
> I have lost all my families documents when I deleted their user accounts
> even though I agreed to KEEP FILES. I cannot not find their docs anywhere on
> my C:
> I have XPon my home computer, and still use my user account.
> Of course I made no back-up of files as I read afterwards that I should do.
> Can anyone Help?
>

If you did indeed choose to Keep Files, then first enable the ability to
see hidden files:

Make sure you are able to see all hidden files and extensions (View tab
in Folder Options). In XP, there are four checkboxes to deal with:

a. Check "Display the contents of system folders".
b. Check "Show hidden files and folders".
c. Uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types".
d. Uncheck "Hide protected operating system files" and click "OK" to the
dialog box.

Then double-click on My Computer and go to C:\Documents and Settings. Do
you see the other profiles there? If so, that's where the data is. If
not, then do nothing further on the machine and see the following
standard cut/paste information about data retrieval. When the dust
settles, create and use a backup strategy so this doesn't happen again.

*IMPORTANT* - DO NOTHING FURTHER ON THE DRIVE. The data is still on the
hard drive but if you overwrite it, it will be extremely difficult or
impossible to recover it. If you use data recovery software, install it
on another machine and either use it from that operating system or
create a bootable cd/floppy and work with that. If you don't have the
skill and/or equipment to do these procedures and the data is crucial,
take the machine to a professional computer repair shop that has
experience in doing data recovery. This will not be your local version
of BigStoreUSA. In-shop data recovery is usually not exactly cheap (for
ex., my charges are generally $150-350USD), but it normally costs less
than sending the drive to a company like Drive Savers.

Professional data recovery companies like Drive Savers usually charge
from $500USD on up. Drive Savers recovered all the data on a failed
laptop drive for one of my clients and it cost $2,700. He thought it was
worth the money; only you know what your data is worth. I understand
that some insurance companies are now covering data recovery charges
under "Loss of Intellectual Property" so check with yours.

Drive Savers - http://www.drivesavers.com
Seagate Data Recovery Services - https://www.seagatedatarecovery.com/

You need to make the determination of the value of your data and decide
what to do.

Data recovery software:

http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/RESTORATION.html
PCInspector File Recovery -
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/welcome.htm
Executive Software “Undelete” -
http://www.execsoft.com/undelete/undelete.asp
R-Studio - http://www.r-tt.com/
File Scavenger - http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm
Ontrack's EasyRecovery - http://www.ontrack.com/software/

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User