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Question

Service Pack 2 or 3

Oct 24, 2012 2:52AM PDT

Recently I had a computer business download Service Pack 2 and 3. When I got the computer back I noticed I lost all my Microsoft Outlook folders & address book as well as my internet bookmark favorites. We are all puzzles where they went. My computer is a old one I used when working through my home and was still set-up with network stuff. My software is Microsoft Prof. XP. Now the computer guy wants to do a data recovery on my hard drive. Have you heard of this happening before? Would it have to do with being setup on a network?
Help

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Sure.
Oct 24, 2012 3:05AM PDT

There are a lot of folk that didn't backup and recovery becomes the only option.

So yes, happens all the time. Mostly to folk that never backup what they need to keep around.
Bob

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Service Pack 2 or 3
Oct 24, 2012 11:47PM PDT

But shouldn't the computer business have known this? And backed up before downloading the new service packs? What kind of risk are there to my hard drive to have them do a data recovery?

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Sure
Oct 25, 2012 12:02AM PDT

Sure, but like any business, there's a wide range of people in it. Some know what they're doing and plenty of others are just barely know more than the average person, but don't let a lack of knowledge stop them from charging people to screw things up like happened to you. It could also be that you had some kind of malware infestation, which are known for killing OS installs when you try and do a major upgrade like a service pack. Simply too many unknowns here to say one way or the other, unless you want to own up to something on your end.

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Yup.
Oct 25, 2012 12:22AM PDT

While this does not happen to everyone because of virus, malware and more it's not possible for updates to be perfect. So as that motto goes, "be prepared."

Usually data recovery is low risk to the hard drive itself. The data is always at risk.
Bob