Windows XP retrieving a deleted document

[Davos]

Hi all, my first post here, so please be patient with regards my computer illiteracy!

I had a word document saved on the hard drive (Windows XP), however i decided to delete the document and save it to floppy disk (old school i know). A couple of weeks later i tried to load the said document from the floppy disk, however when i did this a message came up stating that the disk wasnt "formatted". I believe this means that the data on the disk is irretrievable.

Having deleted the document and disposed of it from the recycle bin i used "System Restore" in an attempt to retrieve the document. I restored the settings on the day i first saved the document, however despite having a shortcut to the document ("My recent documents") when i click on the shortcut i get a message saying the "file may have been changed or moved". After browsing for the document i can see no trace of it.

Does anyone know if the file may be retrievable either off the hard drive or from the floppy disk?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

regards

davos

 

[Taffycat]

Hi Davos, I have not tried this personally, but there is a free Data Recovery Software tool here, which has scored 5/6 stars (or in this instance "ducks") on the No-Nags website.

 

[Ian]

Unfortunately, System Restore doesn't bring back documents - but it would bring back the shortcut pointing to it.

You could take the disk and hard drive to a data recovery place and they may be able to retrieve it, but that's going to be expensive - so perhaps only worth it if it is very valuable.

You might have some luck by running a free data recovery program yourself if you know the old file location:

http://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/

Hope that works

 

[Davos]

cheers both, i'll try those free programmes first and keep my fingers crossed that theyre succesful.

What are the odds on being able to retrieve the document from a floppy that isnt formatted?

 

[Taffycat]

Re your floppy Davos, I've just had a Google around, and found this tool, which comes in a downloadable trial version. It is specifically for Floppy Disks - so it says, but again, I've not got any personal experience of it.

Good luck

 

[Davos]

Cheers Taffycat i used that floppy data recovery tool and it managed to recover the relevant documents from the floppy disk. Unfortunately it required me to pay about $46 (£23) to actually see the documents, but apart from that minor setback it worked a treat.

Thanks very much for your help!

 

[Taffycat]

That's great Davos, glad you were able to recover your data Thank you for the update, it's much appreciated

 

[navrecovery]

edit : Spam removed

 

[Madxgraphics]

I was pointed to Recuva by Taffycat the other day..It is brilliant and you can use it to recover from, external HDD and floppy disks..Great tool it is..

 

[annev]

Recuva! That's just what i was going to suggest...I came across that and downloaded it last night, when I was downloading ccleaner. Haven 't tried it yet.

 

[Madxgraphics]

Trust me, its the dogs bollox...And pretty scary to..Me other half has an Acer Aspire ..It is a refurb she bought about a year ago, I installed Recuva on it for her, as she is good at deleting things then moaning she didn't want toetc..Anyway long stiry short, I ran recuva and came up with a load of pics..Just goes to show, even after a reformat there is still evidence of old pics, none of them were any of ours...