TBMeech

Ok, My dad being as technically minded as he is has had the following problem:

1) PC (P3 1.4 Running Win XP Pro), seemed to have a virus, it worked fine but sometimes the internet (BT Openworld ASDL) would lock, forcing a reboot (not too problematic), but on rebooting it used to stop on the boot up sequence and inform a windows file was missing and stop, turn it off for 10 mins or so and it was fine......

2) He rings the support peeps for his machine, they say use the Windows XP Repair and Tools cd, so he does, it formats his hard drive and kills all his Accounts etc

So, is there a program we can use to recover his files? as he's lost over a years worth of Accounts DOH!

Any ideas please?

Nimbus

If you have formatted the hard drive, then I think you have lost everything. I don't suppose it's worth asking if you make a backup of the data you needed?

I'm not sure if there is anyway to get data back after a reformat. I'm sure someone here will post, but I think it's bad news

Mice_Elf

I take it there's no backup in operation??

Failing that, there are companies that can "find" the data on your hard drive, depending on how thoroughly it's been formatted.

Quick reply...no, there's no way he can get the files back
Long Reply...yes, it may be possible with the right software / by the right people...but both are expensive and there are still no guarantees...

Nimbus

Add to say that the support team should have known that it would reformat the drive and told you to back up important files before doing it.

Mice_Elf

Nimbus...c'mon...this is a random Support Company...

My mum had problems with her modem one power cut - the surge blew the modem. She rang the Support people, as I wasn't about and was sent a disk....told to put it in the floppy and type "FORMAT C:"

Needless to say, she wasn't confident enough to do this on her own, so waited until next time I was down at my folks'. Replaced the modem with a known-working and it was fine.

Ducati 996

As the old saying goes, back everything up (if possible) before any work is carried out. Plus no he has to rebuild it, create a 2nd partition, or maybe a 2nd drive, and keep the business stuff on there, if the OS screws up, at least the data will be safer...

Mice_Elf

2nd drive....much the safer option. Just slave it to the master and keep all your files on it.

Nimbus

It's great to be saying "you should backup your files" after the drive has been formatted. It won't help you this time, but it well worth remembering for the future.

If there are companies out there that can recover your data (no gaurentees) then you will need to weigh the costs of them (probably going to to be a lot) against the value of your lost data.



Mice_elf, whoever the "support" company is, I would make a complaint against them if this happened to me. These people *know* that the drive will be formatted. Not telling the user of the risks is unacceptable IMHO.