Re-installed windows - lost everything - can I get it back?

KathysBoy

LottyB wrote: »

Hi there
Hoping someone can help.
I'm posting on behalf of my sister as its her laptop which has lost stuff.

She turned her laptop on the other day and whilst using it a message cam eon the screen saying that she needed to re-install windows (my sister is not very computer literate and did suspect that this could be something malicious). Anyway she re-installed windows and has now lost everything on there - mainly photos (some of which were of her daughters birth & first Christmas). Is there any way that these files are still on the computer and can be retrieved?

Once I have got her sorted I will make sure that she has some anti virus software installed (I think she had some on when she bought ot but it was only for a few months after which time she was asked to pay for it and so she never did). I'll install AVG I think.

I think I'll need to re-install her links to allow her to get access to the internet too, but I'm hoping I can follow the initial installation instructions to get this back working again.

If anyone can suggest how/if its possible to retrieve these photo's I'd be really grateful.

Many Thanks in Anticipation

Lotty

It may depend upon which version of Windows it was. If it was Windows 7 (I think Vista is also the same, but I can't remember with Xp and before), when you insert the disk it gives you the option to repair. If you don't take this option , but instead do a full install, it recognises that there is a previous version of Windows, and copies it a folder called "Old Windows, or Windows Old". Its a real pain casue you then have to delete all the files in there which takes ages. The only time it deletes all the files is if you do a clean install (which I always do) but you need to be a reasonably computer savvy to do this.

My experience of file retrieval programs is not good for photos, although it was when I had accidently deleted the files. When I used a program it said it found the files (which it did), then took hours to retrieve all the data, but some bits of datahad been obviously lost and the photos weren't in a form that you could view properly. I then remembered an old back I had on cd, so picked them up from there.

I keep all my personal stuff on a seperate drive, although you can just as easily create a seperate partition. This means you never have this type of problem. I also store images of my operating system and programs (c drive) on there, as I reimage every 3 months or so to get rid of the junk that accumulates. I then just change the links on Music, Documents, Email etc to point to my drive (where they are stored) and all my personal file is exactly the same.

I learnt this the hard way through not backing up.

busenbust

If anyone can suggest how/if its possible to retrieve these photo's I'd be really grateful.

Many Thanks in Anticipation

Any joy Lotty?

EffyMiles

I think this is a typical photo lost due to mis-formatting during re-installation. Now you can try to use some photo recovery software to recover formatted photos. You need to remember that once you lost something in your PC, you'd better stop putting more files into it to avoid data overwritten. Then you have a bigger chance to recover your lost things.

You can try wondershare data recovery. It has option of format recovery which is very suitable for you. And if this option can't work you can try Raw Recovery which can deep scan your disks and get back the lost staff.

Good luck!

busenbust

EffyMiles wrote: »

I think this is a typical photo lost due to mis-formatting during re-installation. Now you can try to use some photo recovery software to recover formatted photos. You need to remember that once you lost something in your PC, you'd better stop putting more files into it to avoid data overwritten. Then you have a bigger chance to recover your lost things.

You can try wondershare data recovery. It has option of format recovery which is very suitable for you. And if this option can't work you can try Raw Recovery which can deep scan your disks and get back the lost staff.

Good luck!

And welcome to MSE Effy :hello:

LottyB

Thanks everyone for all of your help and feedback - it really is appreciated. As yet I've had no joy at finding/recovering any of the pictures. I'm still working my way through a couple more of the suggestions though so am keeping my fingers crossed that I manage it. I'm not the most technically minded person so this isn't the easiest thing for me to do (but I'm certainly better than my sister is hence why I've ended up trying to sort things out for her!). I really don't think she can afford to go down the route of paying someone to try and get them back so I do really hope that one of these suggestions works.

Thanks again everyone and I'll post again later on once I've tried the next suggestion.

Best wishes
Lotty

davb

If you have no luck with Recuva, then I would try GetDataBack, which has been mentioned here. You will most likely need the NTFS version.
It's not free, but I think there is a trail version - which will probably show what it can recover, but not actually do it until you buy.

busenbust

LottyB wrote: »

Thanks everyone for all of your help and feedback - it really is appreciated. As yet I've had no joy at finding/recovering any of the pictures. I'm still working my way through a couple more of the suggestions though so am keeping my fingers crossed that I manage it. I'm not the most technically minded person so this isn't the easiest thing for me to do (but I'm certainly better than my sister is hence why I've ended up trying to sort things out for her!). I really don't think she can afford to go down the route of paying someone to try and get them back so I do really hope that one of these suggestions works.

Thanks again everyone and I'll post again later on once I've tried the next suggestion.

Best wishes
Lotty

Never a problem , and thanks for letting us know Lotty. Sorry to hear about the loss of pictures/docs, but do try and learn from this. Backup your data onto external media/storage

nitr02007

busenbust wrote: »

Backup your data onto external media/storage

or use an online solution. I use Microsoft's Live Mesh
https://www.mesh.com
15GB of free online storage, and will also allow you to access those files from anywhere on t'internet, syncronise them across different computers and once setup it backs up your files in the background whenever they change.

busenbust

nitr02007 wrote: »

or use an online solution. I use Microsoft's Live Mesh
www.mesh.com
15GB of free online storage, and will also allow you to access those files from anywhere on t'internet, syncronise them across different computers and once setup it backs up your files in the background whenever they change.

Nice idea, or in conjunction with :cool2:

aliEnRIK

Try Recuva as per post #10