I inadvertently restore system to its original state

[fl]

Hi,
I want to add a new video card to my HP Pavillion a820n computer. From
some advice on the newsgroup, I uninstall the original video on-board
driver first. Then, I wanted to delete other left driver under display
and video adapter driver after the safe mode bootup (This is the
suggestion for the upgrade video driver). But, my computer go to
system restore, instead of safe mode bootup. It had quite a long time
to restore and to the partition action later. Now, my computer
directly goes to the single administer account (previously it has four
accounts). Even though I can see the shared directories and files, the
other three account files, I lost my documents under My Documents
directory. Could you help me to recover my documents? Thanks a lot. My
computer has an XP family version.

 

[fl]

Hi,
I want to add a new video card to my HP Pavillion a820n computer. From
some advice on the newsgroup, I uninstall the original video on-board
driver first. Then, I wanted to delete other left driver under display
and video adapter driver after the safe mode bootup (This is the
suggestion for the upgrade video driver). But, my computer go to
system restore, instead of safe mode bootup. It had quite a long time
to restore and to the partition action later. Now, my computer
directly goes to the single administer account (previously it has four
accounts). Even though I can see the shared directories and files, the
other three account files, I lost my documents under My Documents
directory. Could you help me to recover my documents? Thanks a lot. My
computer has an XP family version.

From the start up of the computer, it seems that it is at the original
state because it asked to setup internet etc. I cannot see any
previous date from the System Restore application. Thanks.

 

[Daave]

Hi,
I want to add a new video card to my HP Pavillion a820n computer. From
some advice on the newsgroup, I uninstall the original video on-board
driver first. Then, I wanted to delete other left driver under display
and video adapter driver after the safe mode bootup (This is the
suggestion for the upgrade video driver). But, my computer go to
system restore, instead of safe mode bootup. It had quite a long time
to restore and to the partition action later. Now, my computer
directly goes to the single administer account (previously it has four
accounts). Even though I can see the shared directories and files, the
other three account files, I lost my documents under My Documents
directory. Could you help me to recover my documents? Thanks a lot. My
computer has an XP family version.

I believe you are confusing System Restore (a function of the Windows XP
operating system) and HP's System Recovery function. Information on the
latter may be found at:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&cc=us&docname=bph07145&dlc=en

System Restore is only concerned with returning the system's settings
(e.g., the registry and some other settings) to a previous point in
time, usually a few days ago). Information for future reference:

"Use System Restore to Undo Changes if Problems Occur"
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/systemrestore.mspx

"Windows XP System Restore Is Easy to Use"
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/getstarted/ballew_03may19.mspx

Unfourtunately, you learned the hard way that backing up your data is
best done before you lose it. It sounds like you performed a destructive
recovery. If you are lucky, you may be able to retrieve some of the lost
data. This will involve removing the hard drive and either attaching it
as a slave in another PC or placing it in an external USB enclosure.
Then you would need to run a data recovery program on the other PC to
attempt to salvage what is possible. The sooner this is done, the
better, because any further use of your hard drive will result in even
more loss of data. There are many data recovery programs available, some
free. Perhaps you need to take the PC to a professional (but not a chain
store!). If the data is extremely valuable, you could always take it to
a data recovery specialist, but that can wind up costing you thousands
of dollars.

What exactly is "XP family version"? Do you mean XP Home?