Retreiving files

[Ely]

I reinstalled windows XP and my old file are no longer there. I'm I able to
retrieve it?

 

[DL]

Depends what 'old files' you refer to and what type of reinstall, a repair
or clean install or?

 

[db]

dl brought up an interesting
point.

in that if you had done a repair
installation, then only the system files
that were missing or corrupted
would have been replaced
with genuine ones from the cd.

basically the above leaves
the rest of the files intact.

however, a clean install may
not have wiped away those
files.

with a clean install, you basically
re install the operating system
from scratch.

however, the question is was
a format initiated at the time
of the installation or skipped?

if there was no format, then
it is highly likely your personal
files are still on the disk.

the question is how to retrieve
them.

ideally if the master file table
was re-indexed in some manner
then the files on the disk could
become visible again.

however this is only a thought but
I'm interested in researching this
further.

-------------

what you might try perhaps is
to see if a software like recuva
can see the data on the disk
and recover it.

not sure if it will work if it
relies on the master file table
being up to date.

but worth a shot to try.
--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces

"share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I reinstalled windows XP and my old file are no longer there. I'm I able
to
retrieve it?

The definitive answer is, maybe. It depends.

If you formatted the drive as part of the install, you probably can't.
While theoretically you could use a recovery service to dredge files back,
in reality they are probably badly overwritten now and not really
recoverable.

If you did a reinstall of a new version of XP, then you'll probably find
that there is another set of user folders under c:\Documents and Settings,
and you can just go to those folders and gain access to your files. At
worst, with the exception below, you'll have to Take Ownership of the
folders to get the files.

The exception is if you have XP PRO, not Home, AND IF you invoked encryption
(which is not available in XP Home). IF both of those are true, AND IF you
did not take the foolishly optional step of backing up the account
credentials, you won't decrypt the files. If you did back up the
credentials, simply import them.

HTH
-pk

 

[M.I.5¾]

The definitive answer is, maybe. It depends.

If you formatted the drive as part of the install, you probably can't.
While theoretically you could use a recovery service to dredge files back,
in reality they are probably badly overwritten now and not really
recoverable.

If you did a reinstall of a new version of XP, then you'll probably find
that there is another set of user folders under c:\Documents and Settings,
and you can just go to those folders and gain access to your files. At
worst, with the exception below, you'll have to Take Ownership of the
folders to get the files.

The exception is if you have XP PRO, not Home, AND IF you invoked
encryption (which is not available in XP Home). IF both of those are
true, AND IF you did not take the foolishly optional step of backing up
the account credentials, you won't decrypt the files. If you did back up
the credentials, simply import them.

I was in the process of typing a post asking why you considered the step of
backing up the credentials to be foolish.

But rereading what you wrote, I realised that there was an alternative
interpretation that you were describing Misrosoft as foolish for making that
particular step optional. I think many would agree with that
interpretation.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I was in the process of typing a post asking why you considered the step
of backing up the credentials to be foolish.

But rereading what you wrote, I realised that there was an alternative
interpretation that you were describing Misrosoft as foolish for making
that particular step optional. I think many would agree with that
interpretation.

It is awkwardly phrased, but you are correct, the foolish choice was MS's in
allowing the credential export as optional.

Nothing that encourages data loss should be permitted, let alone the
default.