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

rose28454

2% done and now at 44days. I will keep you all updated just for fun

buglawton

What amazes me (the poverty of some parts of MS software) is that even the computer-savvy can be confused by MS's wording when you are prompted to do a re-install (and you are usually feeling a little panicked at just this moment). Does at any point a Wizard pop up to say "I notice that you are re-installing, you will lose all your documents and pictures, do you wish to back them up now" and invite you to plug in a usb drive so the Wizard backs up all important-looking stuff. Does it? No, heck.

closed

A usb caddy is going to be slower than ide/sata connection, run the recovery in situ after turning off windows update (service pack/kb's might overwrite your data). If the pc you are running it on is usb 1, it will take forever in a caddy.

Does the disk make any strange noises?

rose28454

closed wrote: »

A usb caddy is going to be slower than ide/sata connection, run the recovery in situ after turning off windows update (service pack/kb's might overwrite your data). If the pc you are running it on is usb 1, it will take forever in a caddy.

Does the disk make any strange noises?

No it just as a blue flashing light on the front of the caddy. I tried running Recova on the actual laptop with the disk in place but the laptop kept going off. So my friend suggested the caddy route ( as did someone on this thread.) What is the difference between usb 1 and 2? The desktop is a Dell Optiplex 260 with newly installed Windows XP.

lee5768

simple way to tell if she has formated the pc would be to go into the recovery console
and see what the earliest recovery date if its the past few days the system has been formated and reset to factory and its unlikely she will recover the photos

with some luck they might be a restore date before the problem and this may recover the files

closed

usb2 is 40 times faster than usb1

Maybe the laptop was going into power save mode.

rose28454

closed wrote: »

usb2 is 40 times faster than usb1


Maybe the laptop was going into power save mode.

No it actually switches off and as I seem to have messed it up my techie friend says recovering in a caddy is safer. How do I know if my usb ports are 2 or 1? I am using the port on the front of the machine at present to run the caddy

closed

it will says enhanced in device manager

rose28454

closed wrote: »

it will says enhanced in device manager

Found that but how do I know which usb is which?

lee5768

if it says enhanced all ports are