XP Prof 32 crashed; reinstalled XP, lost all files; need to restor

  • Thread starter Thread starter MedSec
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MedSec

Black Screen upon boot; none of options worked; did not have the F8 info,
etc. I reinstalled XP (32) with the warning about losing files because I
felt I had no option. I know those files are still ON THE COMPUTER. How do I
restore these files?
 
MedSec said:
Black Screen upon boot; none of options worked; did not have the F8 info,
etc. I reinstalled XP (32) with the warning about losing files because I
felt I had no option. I know those files are still ON THE COMPUTER. How
do I
restore these files?
Click to expand...

Sorry, you can't. Re-installing Windows destroyed most of your data files.
You did actually have several options of retrieving your files before
re-installing Windows, e.g. by connecting your disk as a slave disk to some
other Windows XP PC. However, your main problem lies in your backup
philosophy. If you store important files on your PC then you *must* back
them up regularly to an external medium, e.g. once a week. A 2.5" disk in a
USB case is a low-cost but highly effective backup medium, provided that you
keep it well away from your PC for most of the time.
 
MedSec said:
Black Screen upon boot; none of options worked; did not have the F8
info, etc. I reinstalled XP (32) with the warning about losing
files because I felt I had no option. I know those files are still
ON THE COMPUTER. How do I restore these files?
Click to expand...

You were incorrect in that you had no option and you are likely (given what
you have thus far) incorrect about the files still being on the computer.

What you have described is either a clean installation (including a format)
or a destructive restoration of some sort (built likely by whatever OEM
manufactured the system.) You would have to be more detailed to confirm or
rebute that.

If so, what that means is that it would have cleared the file system
(removed file pointers most likely) and then started overwriting things
since it decided there was nothing there. It erased everything and then by
installing Windows XP/etc - you wrote over it further - essentially
lessening your chance of recovering any of your stuff from the old system.
Much in the same way a 'wipe' works by overwriting the area of the disk once
occupied by the data you wish to wipe by multiple passes of zeros, you
seemingly overwrote areas of the disk once occupied by data with new data.

If you described incorrectly and you can still see your old "Documents and
Settings" directory - then you have a very good chance of recovery. If you
go into the "Documents and Settings" directory and see nothing of your old
system - there is a high percentage chance everything you did not back up is
lost. If the latter is the case - consider it a life lesson.

In any case - purchase some external media and setup a consistent backup
plan and stick to it from now on.

If you want to know what you could have done to first get your data off -
just ask.

If you want to describve further exactly what you did to get to this point -
please do so - perhaps the guesses are incorrect and your data is
retrievable.
 
Black Screen upon boot; none of options worked; did not have the F8 info,
etc. I reinstalled XP (32) with the warning about losing files because I
felt I had no option.
Click to expand...


Exactly how did you do that?

I know those files are still ON THE COMPUTER.
Click to expand...


How do you know that? If you did the reinstallation properly (and you
probably did if you got a warning about losing all your files), they
are *not* still on the computer.

How do I
restore these files?
Click to expand...


You probably can not.
 
Ken Blake said:
Exactly how did you do that?




How do you know that? If you did the reinstallation properly (and you
probably did if you got a warning about losing all your files), they
are *not* still on the computer.




You probably can not.


--
Click to expand...
turn the computer upside down and shake it. If you files are iin there they
should drop out
 
MedSec said:
Black Screen upon boot; none of options worked; did not have the F8 info,
etc. I reinstalled XP (32) with the warning about losing files because I
felt I had no option. I know those files are still ON THE COMPUTER. How do I
restore these files?
Click to expand...

I can think of a couple free tools you can try.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec#How_PhotoRec_works

Even less is written about the following one. The author of the software,
eventually sold it to another company, for them to take it commercial.
You can still find archived copies of the free version, before
it got sold. One person was able to get some files from a damaged
NTFS file system with it. The original web site isn't around any
longer, and this web site hosts an archived copy.

http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/WoundedMoon/win32/driverescue19d.html

Make sure you have enough space for the output. Buy a new drive,
something a bit bigger than the damaged drive, and use that
to store the output. That way, you won't run out of space
before you're finished a recovery run.

If I was doing this, I'd slave the messed up drive, and the recovery
drive, to another computer, and run the recovery there. If you
instead, have only one computer, and want to continue using the
messed up drive as your boot drive, then as file space is required on
C: , you'll be overwriting the old files. You can still run the scavengers,
but you might lose a few files you could potentially have saved. For
example, System Recovery probably writes a bit of stuff, every time
you boot the computer, so that is one mechanism for "slack space" to
get recycled and overwritten.

Good luck,
Paul
 
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