Is there a way to retrieve lost data?

EmptyPockets

Hello,

I've just spoken to my Mum, who tells me that her PC got infected by 'trojans and worms', and by the sounds of it, was in an unusable state. She said that she did a 'factory restore' on the advice of someone at PC World, and the PC is now back to the basic set-up she had when she bought it.

She has lost a LOT of photos that were stored on the PC and, despite my advice, were not backed-up anywhere else. So my question is, now that she has done this factory restore (I've never heard of this being done, I asked her how she did it and she said it was F12..???) is there any way I can recover her data for her, i.e photographs, favourites, etc..?

Many thanks in advance, any advice welcome

Marty_J

There are programs available which can recover lost data. However, they become less effective the more the computer is used so I imagine reinstalling Windows and subsequently using the computer will have seriously marred the chances of recovering anything.

I think your mother has learned two painful lessons: back up your data, and don't ask people at PC World for technical advice!

EmptyPockets

Marty_J wrote: »

I think your mother has learned two painful lessons: back up your data, and don't ask people at PC World for technical advice!

Yep, I have to agree with you :rolleyes: But thank you anyway!

kpeterson05

I also have heard about some software but I have never used any of them.

Marty_J wrote: »

I think your mother has learned two painful lessons: back up your data, and don't ask people at PC World for technical advice!

yes, always make sure to take backup of your data. You can use external hard drive or make CD of it.

vyseyboy

Could try recuva to see if there's anything on the now-empty hard disc space - I wouldn't expect too much, for the reasons already outlined, but you never know.

In short, she should stop using it immediately (more use = less chance of successful recovery), boot into safe mode run recuva, and if it does find any image files, copy them to a USB drive or similar external storage (to prevent overwriting the files found when you save them to the hard disk... if you see what I mean.)

flashy

getdataback will be able to read through a corrupted drive, if a factory restore has happened, liekly it has only replaced the first sectors of the disk, your files would have been scattered all over the place.

I would asusme your using NTFS for a file system? or FAT32? GetDataBack does a version for both.

Best way would be to put her hard drive in your PC, and then read it from your PC using the above software, this means your not installing stuff over the top of sectors you want to restore.

One more thing though, images are usually harder to restore than say, text documents, as the images can corrupt mroe easily should a piece of data be missing.

Hope this helps.

S0litaire

+1 for GetDataBack

I've used this many times to recover Drives that have been "Factory Restored" by PC World and the like!! as well as my own foolish exploits

it's the best investment i've ever made! (it's one of the only reasons i keep windows around for emergences!).

The Demo version of GetDataBack will do everything except recover the files. So it will show you what it can recover before you part with your cash!!

Sput2001

What version of Windows was she using?

EmptyPockets

Wow, thanks for all of your replies so far, I appreciate it. My Mum is using Windows XP. As far as computers go, I can get by and don't do bad, but this stuff is all way over my head I'm afraid, and my Mum is no better You guys are great though, thank you for all the advice