recovery of files

[steve]

help. my wife turned on our computer that is running
windows xp home edition. she got a boot error. she put in
the operation cd and booted up. now i have a new version
of xp and have lost all i had on the computer. it loaded
just xp and did not copy all my files over. is there a way
to recover all my stuff? is this new xp running over the
top of the old version, can i get back to it? helpppppp.

 

[purplehaz]

If it was a recovery cd then your stuff is gone. Recovery/restore cds come
from the oem and put the computer back to factory state(the day you bought
it). If it was a retail xp cd and she did a repair install your stuff should
still be there, if she did a format, clean install, then your stuff is gone.
What kind of cd did she use and what kind of install did she do?

 

[Malke]

If it was a recovery cd then your stuff is gone. Recovery/restore cds
come from the oem and put the computer back to factory state(the day
you bought it). If it was a retail xp cd and she did a repair install
your stuff should still be there, if she did a format, clean install,
then your stuff is gone. What kind of cd did she use and what kind of
install did she do?

Where's your stuff? On the backups you made. Of course, if you didn't
make backups, then the only way to get the data back is to contact a
professional data recovery firm. Do nothing more on the affected
computer or you will just make things worse. I don't work for
DriveSavers, but they are very well respected in the tech industry:
www.drivesavers.com

Good luck,

Malke