Lousy computers

[2ML67]

My home computer acted up the other day and would not start up windows, the only way I could get it to work was to reset the computer to theway it was when I got it. Unfortunately I ended up loosing all my swap photos, wiring diagrams and family photos.
Is there any way to get the stuff back or is it lost for good. Dan

[JetJumper]

Its pretty much gone, one those do that, they usually format the drives, and use an image of the original configuration to restore windows from, which then over writes the "blocks" that would have been holding your data on before. 

Pretty much out of luck, unless you go to a data recovery center, but thats not even a guarentee that you will get anything, because the more you use the system now, the more that the hard drive will lose of the old data in those spaces.  and it will cost more then $1000

[dguy]

Ouch.  Sorry to hear that Dan.

[aaron88]

Dan;

I don't understand dan.  Your files should still be there.  Restoring setting only affects programs.  Did you have your files stored on My Documents, C drive or was it in the program files for some photo software?  If it's the latter you can say goodbuy to your pics.  If it's one of the former, you should be able to find the pictures still.  Good luck.

For gods sakes once in a while make a backup.  You can get large cheep backup drives now.

Aaron

.

[dguy]

Aaron as Chris said, some system restore discs will often format the drive as part of the restore instead of only touching the operating system and applications.

The plain ol' WinXP system restore tends to leave a user's documents alone, but proprietary systems will quite often nuke the entire drive for you.  The system restore for every Thinkpad and Toshiba laptop I've ever dealt with works this way; wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if a branded desktop system had that "feature" as well.

[2ML67]

My PC is only two years old and runs on XP I got the Vista upgrade with it but did not and will not instal it as I do not like the Vista. My PC is a dual  processor one so I was hoping that would help get my files back but no go.
All my documents are gone the only photos that are there is the ones that come with the PC. Most of the soft ware I had for things like printers and even my autocad are also gone but on the desk top it still shows the icons for these things. When you click on them it doesn't work and states for me to reinstall the software for it to work.
I still had a CD I made up with all the stuff before I got this PC so at least I still have some stuff it is just the last two years worth that is gone and yes I agree I should of done something to prevent losing every thing and I am going to go buy some thing to prevent this from happening again.
Funny thing is the piece of crap is now working better and faster then it has for a while or atleast it was till the wife went on that stupid facebook again. Dan

[c-l]

PM sent

[JetJumper]

thats wierd that you can still see your original shortcuts, that means your information might still be kicking around.  That basically means that it didn't wipe the drive out, otherwise those shortcuts would not be there.

Try having a look around on the hard drive, it might have moved some stuff to a folder called Windows.Old or something like that.

[2ML67]

I gave up and completely reset my PC, I had all the photos and documents from before I got this PC on a disc and loaded them back in so all I am out is about two years of stuff.
One strange thing now that I can not figure out is when you copy and paste a jpg photo from the internet my PC will do that but I can not view the photo from my documents folder. I can view other jpg photos I have saved from before but not the new ones. Ant one have an idea what I have screwed up now. Thanks Dan

[Kitten]

um... dumb question... are you sure the jpgs you are saving from online are saving to your My Documents folder? 

[2ML67]

Yes they are saving to my documents folder I just can not view them while other jpg files in my documents I can read. Dan