Help!

[SuzanneCarey]

Okay, I bought a Gateway computer about 2 years ago and have problems with the stupid thing ever since. I work an IT company so I am not completely computer illiterate, but I am not a pro at them either. There have been persisant problems with the computer so last night I decided to do a system restore. I did not realize that it would completely redo the entire computer! In other words, all of my programs, document, etc that I had on my computer are gone. (What I did was reinstall ME) So, is all of my stuff lost forever? Or is there someway to get back to what I had???? I am a nervous wreck and would really appreciate someone giving me some advice! THANKS!

[tb525]

Hi SuzanneCarey, How did you do the system restore? Did you use ME's restore feature? or did you use a restore disk?

If you used the system restore feature, Do this:

Click Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools, and then click System Restore. To undo your last restoration, click Undo my last restoration. Close any open programs, and then click Next.

[SuzanneCarey]

Thanks for your reply. Actually, I did the system restore but it did not seem to correct the problem so I went through the whole disc restoration. So does this mean I am up a creek? I guess there is no way to undo that? I am such a dork! Is there anything I can do???? I really did not know that it would wipe everything out. I would really appreciate anything anyone has to say about how to correct this!

Thanks, a most desperate person....

[Alfons]

I don't believe you'll find much that you can salvage at this point, since the Restore process usually reformats the disk and then writes the "Factory Installed" version to your Primary Partition, so the old files and their directory pointers would have been overwritten at least once by now and as such not salvagable.

[SuzanneCarey]

I was told I have two options, I can take out the hard drive and allow a Lenox computer to pull the files out that I need or I was told there is some software that can pull files off the hard drive that have been "deleted" or "removed". How does this sound?

[tb525]

Hi again, There is software that may be able to recover some of your files. The only problem is that it is expensive.
Here is one:
http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecovery/

They have a free version that you can download and run, It will show what files can be recovered but it will not let you recover them until you purchase it.
It is a very large download..(32MB)

There are others as well, Go to http://www.google.com and search for data recovery.

If you are going to attempt any type of recovery, Keep your installations and use to a minimum.

[SuzanneCarey]

thank you very much tb525! All I am trying to retreive are some photos I took with my digital camera. they are quite sentimental to me. It would be nice if I could at least see that they can be recovered or not. If I cannot recover the photo files, then I will just have to get over it. Once again, thanks so much for your help!!!

[tb525]

If you are trying to recover jpg's, This may be worth a shot.


ZeFRJPG (http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/atl/l/a/lasrpro/)

This is a free program that is used to recover jpg's that were overwritten by the loveletter virus... It may work..


Here's another:
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm