Recover Lost Data

  • Thread starter Thread starter Robersabel
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R

Robersabel

Had to perform recovery with Dell Computer XP SP3 after discovering 4 viruses
and 3 Trojans. Lost all data.

Is it possible to recover photographs, music, and files?

Robert
 
That depends on whether or not any of your files were overwritten. If you
have a single drive it's easier, if you have a RAID set it's harder. There
are data recovery services that are expensive but can be worth it if your
data is valuable enough.

Do you have a backup you can use?

Robert
 
Also, for right now until you figure out what you need to do I wouldn't write
anything to your disk(s) with the lost data. You might consider buying a new
internal and/or external disk, installing your operating system on that one
and using it until you can recover as much as possible of the data you lost.
 
Sorry for peppering you with replies to this but you might also consider
checking your Help and Support item in your Start menu + Googling around for
Recovering Data or Data Recovery or other phrases that can help you see
what's possible.
 
No because by using Dell's recovery CD, you have lost everything unless you
are prepared to pay about $1,500 minimum for recovery specialists to even
pick up a phone to talk with you!.

I use Norton Ghost 15 (cost me $40) and it does all the backups for me
automatically on an external HD (cost me another $35).

hth
 
Robersabel said:
Had to perform recovery with Dell Computer XP SP3 after discovering
4 viruses and 3 Trojans. Lost all data.

Is it possible to recover photographs, music, and files?
Click to expand...

Unlikely - you could try "Undelete" or "Recuva" - but given you essentially
formatted and wrote over some of the drive contents - chances are slim and
get slimmer everytime you do anything on that machine.

I'm guessing you did not follow the most basic rules of computer
ownership/usage: backups.

Too complicated? Purchase a Seagate Replica drive - the 500GB version -
will do everything for you, backing up *EVERYTHING*.
 
Ugh. Good point. The first thing Dell - and Dell Support in particular - will
always tell you to do is to reformat your drive. That's almost always the
worst possible thing to tell somebody right off the bat and there are
typically ways to fix things and not lose all your data. But saying that
makes life a lot easier for them and keeps their support costs down, which is
the main reason they do it undoubtedly.

I'd Google around and do some research on data recovery to see what might be
possible. And while you're doing that -> don't write anything to your problem
disk, you might be overwriting some files you want to keep. Windows resets
pointers to deleted files but keeps the actual data intact, but it marks that
space as being available for writing so another file can use the space if it
needs it.
 
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