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General discussion

data recovery and deltree

Nov 27, 2003 12:30PM PST

My pc locked up on me and I used a boot disk to recover XP. The disk that I used was an ME boot disk because my computer wasn't recogizing my cd-rom drive. Somehow in the process, I think the deltree command was executed. My backup was not current, and I need to try and restore as much of my data as possible. Unfortunately I have no idea where to start. My questions are these.
1) Is there any hope of recovering any of my data.
2) If there is some hope, here should I start and what steps should I take.
3) Is there a program that I can use that will speed. my recovery.
Any help that anybody could give me would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

Discussion is locked

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Re:data recovery and deltree. Fix the CDROM issue.
Nov 28, 2003 12:35AM PST

Not enough was written here, but I can imagine a good scenario to be that your hard disk is formatted NTFS and the Windows ME boot disk would not/could not actually delete files, but can't see them either. The result could be what you have written.

In short:

1. Fix your CDROM issue.
2. HOW IMPORTANT IS THAT DATA? If important...
3. Remove the hard disk and put in a new hard disk.
4. Install XP and get it all patched up and what minimal programs you need to run.
5. Shut down, connect the old hard disk to the second IDE channel on it's own and boot up.

IF you are lucky, the files will show up and you can drag them off to where you want them.

Bob

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Re:data recovery and deltree
Nov 28, 2003 12:57AM PST

FIRST, do not allow any writing to the hard drive as any files written to the hard drive may well overwrite what you want to recover.

next, you will need some third party software for finding and restoring what you deleted.

Here are some you may find useful:
http://www.uneraser.com/undelete.htm (best as it fits on and is used from floppy--won't overwrite files by having to install to hard drive)
http://www.active-undelete.com/features.htm

Here is another that fits on floppy and is freeware. I have not used it myself so can not guarantee it but for the price it ought to be worth the try.

http://hccweb1.bai.ne.jp/~hcj58401/

and yet another freeware file recovery is PC Inspector but it must be installed on a second drive under a working OS.

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm