Omg I Think I Lost Everything On My Pc!, What Can I Do?!?!?!?! Help!

Newbie Forum
#1

OMG!, I cannot believe I did this! I did a system recovery and I think I lost all my FILES!!!

I am so upset right now! I been crying!

Is there anyway to undo that and get my files back?!?!?!?!?!
I lost family pictures! MP3’s, all my documents!!!
OMG!

I have an HP system and it’s a built in systems recovery. OMG I think I lost everything NNOOOO!

Someone suggested I use this program:
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm

I don’t have a second hard drive or ZIP or anything!

HELP ME!!!

#2

Moving this to the Newbie Forum, where I think you’ll get more help :slight_smile:

#3

Exactly what steps did you take when doing this “System Recovery”. Was it a windows restore back to another place and time, or did you actually put in your System Recovery CD, and reply to REFORMAT your HD.

#4

My System Recovery is built in my computer. I do not have a CD. I have an HP computer. however, I did make a back up CDs.

It reformated my hard drive BUT my GB are still the same from before I did this. So I have a feeling everything is still there but WHERE.

#5

Are you sure it reformatted? You must have been given the choice between a destructive and a non-destructive recovery?

If it did format the drive, then don’t do anything with it any more. Either buy a new hard disk to setup Windows from your backup CD’s or find another PC, where you can also attach the original drive as a slave to try and recover your data.

#6

How do I go about doing this?

#7

if he reformatted and reinstalled windows recovering data will be next to impossible, with all the crap that HP installs there’s little chance the data wasn’t written over

#8

Cressida is exactly right. With hp’s, you have a choice of non-destructive and destructive recovery. As per hp support (I had this hassle about 5 yrs. ago with my wife’s pc), with non-destructve - this is successful 90% of the time, ie., 10% failure with loss of data.

Hopefully, you did not reformat, this would be the destructive recovery and you would have received at least two warnings like, “are you sure…”

#9

I fear that DaChew is correct as well. Maybe Cressida can offer some hope here…?

#10

I believe I did the non-destructive recovery. I did not get any warnings when I did this.

Like I said before the GBs are still the same as before I did the recovery. If I did the other one and wiped it out, it would have freed up a lot more space on my PC correct? What do I do now to get my data back?

#11

Maybe it created a backup folder somewhere that you haven’t noticed yet. Have you browsed through Explorer thoroughly. Or if you remember a file name, do a Search for it.

#12

Yeah, I have a feeling everything is gone! I uninstalled Norton and now that’s back on my PC. I believe that takes up a lot of space. I also see programs I deleted as well that are back on. I also remember reading that everything I created will be deleted but the programs will stay. so YEAH they are gone! :frowning:

#13

I’ve used GetDataBack (www.runtime.org) with some success in the past. No guarantee on what it will find, anything that’s been over-written by the new install will be lost, as DaChew said already. There’s two versions depending on whether the partition to recover from is FAT32 or NTFS. Install the drive as a slave to another Windows drive, if the data are important enough to you to try this.

#14

The data is VERY important to me! :frowning:
I had pictures of my family, friends, I had videos I made. DVD music files, notepad documents, word doc. etc! :frowning:

I have a feeling it’s all gone. I am back to square one! I am so upset! :frowning:

I saved all my MP3’s THANK GOD, before I did all this, then I really would have killed myself lol.

#15

Yo-

Sorry to hear your plight - but it happens every day-

Suggest getting Acronis ‘True Image’ - about $25 from Newegg at www.newegg.com - to back your files to an [I]external[/I] hard drive - as this is probably the best insurance against doing this exact same thing in the future-eh!

#16

Yeah, I don’t want to get your hopes up or for you to buy software if there’s only a small chance of recovering anything, Mattcharles. It’s probably by restoring the complete original setup with all programs etc. that you get a similar amount of GB used on the disc. Chances are that most of what you had was overwritten already. I’m sorry for you.

#17

Happened to me once. Good thing I had all my stuff backed up on four dvds!

#18

As am I, I too lost a load of family/pet pics that I scanned in, when an image backed up onto a disc messed up.

Now I back everything up…several times.

It’s a horrible situation to be in, but hopefully you’ll be backing up from now on (easy for me to say after everything’s lost I know, but as I say, I’ve been there). :slight_smile:

#19

I took a nap hoping to wake up from this nightmare but it’s all REAL! :frowning:

I’ve just been so upset all day today! I know I have to start from scratch but it’s just HARD! I had two years of stuff GONE! Pictures I can never get back again, my resume I updated, My music videos I made, my songs I wrote, my word docs, etc!
This really hurts! :frowning:

#20

If doing a complete reformat, Windows asks if you want to save user created (non-windows) files to a backup folder. I can’t remember exactly where it saves it to, but a good place to start would be in My Documents. If it’s not there then you can always do a search for it. Just type in “backup” as the search criteria.

Good Luck.