recovering files from hard drive...

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  Gormond Posts: 15,838

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  23/04/08 - 19:42 #2

  primer wrote: »

  Hi
  
  A couple of weeks ago DS posters were very kind and helpful after a small disaster with my PC, whereby i sort of blew it up...
  
  Anyway, it needed a new power supply and a new mother board (as predicted) not too awful or expensive, and it seemed that the hard disk was going to be ok....
  
  but then there was software problem and the hard disk couldn't be accessed and had to be formatted....
  
  the engineer ran some professional file recovery tools but couldn't get any of my files back.
  
  Yes I know I should've saved it all separately - but I didn't, and have now lost all my pictures, music, work, files, life etc...
  
  Is there any way I can get them back? The engineer seemed to be saying that beyond the things he'd already tried, the only other option would br specialist recovery services, £500 and upwards...
  
  whaddya think?

  
  Why on earth did you format the HD ?
  
  Would you send you old car to the crusher with your child still in it? No, you would take the child out first.
  
  The same for the HD, you should have got the stuff you needed first before formating it. I would say after a format it would be almost impossible to recover without specialist software which will likely cost you money.

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  [Deleted User] Posts: 1,302

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  23/04/08 - 19:51 #3

  Check out software called Get Data back, which costs £35.
  
  I've recovered files using it even from a hard drive that PC professionals couldn't.
  
  The demo allows you to see if you can retrieve files, it will show you a tree of file systems, your current one first followed by older ones.
  
  Formatting shouldn't be a problem, I've recovered music, software and video files using it from 3 formats.

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  [Deleted User] Posts: 407

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  23/04/08 - 20:14 #4

  What i always do if my HDD has problems i either A: Use the XP disc to do a repair instead of formatting so all files like music and photos will still be there, Or B: Slave the wonky HDD and just drag everything off onto the master HDD (thats of course if you have another HDD as a spare), Of course backing up photos and music to either disc or a pendrive saves all the hassle in the first place.

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  [Deleted User] Posts: 4,807

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  23/04/08 - 20:23 #5

  or burn a linux livecd bung that in and grab all the files that way, thats what I done when me bootloader got borked whilst case modding

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  primer Posts: 6,370

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  23/04/08 - 22:28 #6

  Hi thanks for the replies.
  
  I didn't format the HD - after my little accident with the power supply the machine was dead, and it never worked again after that.
  
  The engineer did take the HD out and try to rescue stuff from it on another machine but he said he couldn't access it, there were too many errors on it so it couldn't be repaired or slaved.
  
  I will have a look at that software fromez, thanks for the tip.
  
  Thanks all - yes i am a reformed character now and will always back up my files. Honest. As soon as i have any again that is....

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  [Deleted User] Posts: 40,102

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  23/04/08 - 22:43 #7

  When it's all working, get an external hard drive and use Microsoft's Sync Toy to sync all your files to the external. That'll save this happening again.
  
  Good luck!

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