Recovering My Documents After Using a Recovery Disk

[Lew]

My HDD crashed and I used the recovery disks for my HP computer. After
recovery, I noticed that all of my personal files in My Documents are now
gone. I later spoke with a friend who told me that the recovery process
deletes all personal files in My Documents for the Administrator. I have
tested several commercial recovery utilities. However, these utilities
either do not find all my files or cannot display file contents (e.g. JPEG
files).

Is there any way to recover these lost files?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

My HDD crashed and I used the recovery disks for my HP computer.
After recovery, I noticed that all of my personal files in My
Documents are now gone. I later spoke with a friend who told me
that the recovery process deletes all personal files in My
Documents for the Administrator. I have tested several commercial
recovery utilities. However, these utilities either do not find
all my files or cannot display file contents (e.g. JPEG files).

Is there any way to recover these lost files?

If said recovery disks did a destructive repair - doubtful. It would have
completely obliterated and then likely over-written the areas of the disk it
just obliterated. Sort of like writing on a chalkboard, cleaning it with a
standard eraser and writing oall over said board again... The chances of
finding what was writting on it before the first erasure (given it was a
good erasure) is slim to none.

Look in C:\Documents and Settings\ and see what directories exist there - it
is possible the repair was non-destructive. If you see folders there with
your old username - come back and let everyone know - someone can direct you
further from there.

 

[Lew]

If said recovery disks did a destructive repair - doubtful. It would have
completely obliterated and then likely over-written the areas of the disk it
just obliterated. Sort of like writing on a chalkboard, cleaning it with a
standard eraser and writing oall over said board again... The chances of
finding what was writting on it before the first erasure (given it was a
good erasure) is slim to none.

Look in C:\Documents and Settings\ and see what directories exist there - it
is possible the repair was non-destructive. If you see folders there with
your old username - come back and let everyone know - someone can direct you
further from there.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way



Other accounts', my kids', files are intact. I have tested commercial recovery utilities, but I cannot find all my files. The ones that I have found, more than half are corrupt and not recoverable. Thanks for you help.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

My HDD crashed and I used the recovery disks for my HP computer.
After recovery, I noticed that all of my personal files in My
Documents are now gone. I later spoke with a friend who told me
that the recovery process deletes all personal files in My
Documents for the Administrator. I have tested several commercial
recovery utilities. However, these utilities either do not find
all my files or cannot display file contents (e.g. JPEG files).

Is there any way to recover these lost files?

If said recovery disks did a destructive repair - doubtful. It
would have completely obliterated and then likely over-written the
areas of the disk it just obliterated. Sort of like writing on a
chalkboard, cleaning it with a standard eraser and writing oall
over said board again... The chances of finding what was writting
on it before the first erasure (given it was a good erasure) is
slim to none.

Look in C:\Documents and Settings\ and see what directories exist
there - it is possible the repair was non-destructive. If you see
folders there with your old username - come back and let everyone
know - someone can direct you further from there.

Other accounts', my kids', files are intact. I have tested
commercial recovery utilities, but I cannot find all my files.
The ones that I have found, more than half are corrupt and not
recoverable. Thanks for you help.

So - you are saying that in "C:\Documents and Settings\" - you have all the
directories from your previous install as well as this install?

Please do the following and copy/paste the results inside the text file
here...

Start button --> Run --> type in:
cmd /k dir /b "C:\Documents and Settings\" >
"%userprofile%\Desktop\Results.txt"
--> Click OK.

Open the "Results.txt" file on your desktop and copy all of its contents and
paste them in response to this message.

 

[Mick Murphy]

If you had any chance of recovering those files, the more you use that
computer, the more it overwrites them.

To recover anything you have to slave the HD in another computer, and
install the recovery software in the other computer's HD to read it there.

Have you tried:
PCInspector
Full Undelete+
Restoration

 

[Engin Tarhan]

I hope that you have replaced your "crashed" HDD with a brand new one, but
this is a slim hope because you're mentioning the availability of some old
files on the disk. This is a dangerous mistake to make, because, with some
very rare exceptions, a HDD which crashes will crash again soon, and should
not be used except as an ornament.(*)

With all due respect and sympathy, in my opinion (and long-gone experience),
the best way to learn about the importance of "reading the instructions and
warnings BEFORE doing something that you know nothing about" is through
trying to recreate the valuables (files in this instance) from scratch
afterwards.

The fact that you're asking these questions, and the answers you're giving
to other's answers reveal (again, in my opinion) that you're expecting the
impossible to happen. You're simply not going to recover ALL your files.

Assuming that you have no backup available for your files (in another hard
drive perhaps), your best bet is to use the recovery program of your choice,
recover whatever you (the recovery program) can, and learn two things firmly
during the process:

a) Always keep up-to-date backups (i) at another physical HDD, (ii) on CD or
DVD, (iii) on a USB stick.
b) Never start a procedure, of the result of which you're not firmly aware.

(*) After installing a new HDD and recovering your system (Operating system
and factory installed programs), you can install the old drive as the second
HDD and attempt data recovery without overwriting more files because the
second disk will not have any unnecessary actions performed on it. Please
see Mick Murphy's comment in his response to your original message. Him and
me, we're saying essentially the same thing.

Good Luck
Engin Tarhan

 

[Mick Murphy]

Totally agree with you.

One other way is to buy a USB External HD Enclosure, and after what you have
suggested, try and recover it from the new HD install.

Or plug the USB encl. with the old HD in it, into another computer, and try
to recover the Data after installing the recovery software on the HD in the
other computer..

 

[Rockingham500]

My HDD crashed and I used the recovery disks for my HP computer.  After
recovery, I noticed that all of my personal files in My Documents are now
gone.  I later spoke with a friend who told me that the recovery process
deletes all personal files in My Documents for the Administrator.  I have
tested several commercial recovery utilities.  However, these utilities
either do not find all my files or cannot display file contents (e.g. JPEG
files).

Is there any way to recover these lost files?

Have you tried File Restore Professional? It has various scan options
and will find more lost files that many other commercial undelete
products. You can download it from here: www.pcrecovery.com

 

[Lew]

Have you tried File Restore Professional? It has various scan options
and will find more lost files that many other commercial undelete
products. You can download it from here: www.pcrecovery.com

Thank you to all that have replied to my posting. I will try to answer as
many questions here. First, when I could not successfully recover my HDD, I
immediately removed it and replaced it, so there is not much if anything that
overwrote my data. I have a HHD adapter and have connected it to my computer
via a USB port and can access it as if it is a removable external drive. All
the files of users other than the Administrator are intact. Unfortunately,
my files were under the administrator (a lesson that I have learned not to
repeat). As I mentioned before, I test drove a few commercial product. Many
have found files not seen using Windows Explorer. Unfortunately, it appears
that many of these files are unusable, when previewing them (e.g. .jpg files
cannot be seen on a viewer, several Word documents that cannot be read by
Word). In addition, there are many other files that I cannot find at all. I
was told that one of the first things that Recovery does is to wipe out the
Administrator's My Documents. I was hoping that this was a simple Erase and
that I could recover the files after the fact. Unfortunately, it corrupts
many of the files and even worse completely obliterates many files to the
point where I cannot even identify them. I backed up most of my financial
data on a thumb drive and only lost a couple of weeks of data, which I
recreated (mostly). However, I lost all my family photos, a real loss. I am
probably grasping at smoke at this point, but does anybody know a way of
fixing the corrupted jpg files?

Lew

 

[ColTom2]

Hi Lew:

Let me be sure that I have what you have said right. Your HD crashed and
you immediately removed and replaced it and you haven't written on it since
then.

If this is correct then I have a suggestion for you that has worked for me
in repairing HD's for over 95 % of the time. Here is the website of a
program called Spinrite http://www.grc.com/intro.htm that basically repairs
your bad HD sectors by transferring the good data out of these bad sectors
into good sectors and then blocking future usage of the bad sectors to
prevent reuse.

I have repaired numerous bad HD's on Dell computers and others as well.
It's just if you are willing to pay the cost initially of Spinrite to
recover your HD. You said your HD crashed so I am assuming that it would not
let you boot up under any circumstances. If this is the case I would highly
recommend that you purchase Spinrite, as I feel there is over a 90% that you
will restore your HD if you haven't done anything to it since it crashed.

It's a handy application to have as a back up in case you ever have HD
problems again. I forgot to mention that it is a bootable CD so if you do
acquire it just reinstall your HD, boot from the CD, and set it at Level 2
for repair and the required time will be based upon the size of your HD.
Most take approximately 1 1/2 hours with some less and some more.

ColTom2


My HDD crashed and I used the recovery disks for my HP computer. After
recovery, I noticed that all of my personal files in My Documents are now
gone. I later spoke with a friend who told me that the recovery process
deletes all personal files in My Documents for the Administrator. I have
tested several commercial recovery utilities. However, these utilities
either do not find all my files or cannot display file contents (e.g. JPEG
files).

Is there any way to recover these lost files?

 

[Mick Murphy]

"My HDD crashed and I used the recovery disks for my HP computer. After
recovery, I noticed that all of my personal files in My Documents are now
gone."

Read the OP's 1st post
He ran recovery disks through it!

 

[ColTom2]

Thanks Mike, as I read right through what he said and you are correct.
Spinrite would do him no good whatsoever at this point.

ColTom2

Have you tried File Restore Professional? It has various scan options
and will find more lost files that many other commercial undelete
products. You can download it from here: www.pcrecovery.com

Thank you to all that have replied to my posting. I will try to answer as
many questions here. First, when I could not successfully recover my HDD,
I
immediately removed it and replaced it, so there is not much if anything
that
overwrote my data. I have a HHD adapter and have connected it to my
computer
via a USB port and can access it as if it is a removable external drive.
All
the files of users other than the Administrator are intact. Unfortunately,
my files were under the administrator (a lesson that I have learned not to
repeat). As I mentioned before, I test drove a few commercial product.
Many
have found files not seen using Windows Explorer. Unfortunately, it appears
that many of these files are unusable, when previewing them (e.g. .jpg files
cannot be seen on a viewer, several Word documents that cannot be read by
Word). In addition, there are many other files that I cannot find at all.
I
was told that one of the first things that Recovery does is to wipe out the
Administrator's My Documents. I was hoping that this was a simple Erase and
that I could recover the files after the fact. Unfortunately, it corrupts
many of the files and even worse completely obliterates many files to the
point where I cannot even identify them. I backed up most of my financial
data on a thumb drive and only lost a couple of weeks of data, which I
recreated (mostly). However, I lost all my family photos, a real loss. I
am
probably grasping at smoke at this point, but does anybody know a way of
fixing the corrupted jpg files?

Lew