Restoring deleted users My Documents folder

  • Thread starter Thread starter Navykel
  • Start date Start date
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Navykel

A friend of mine had a tech come out and fix a problem
with her system. His solution was to delete her account
then re-create it. The problem is all her My Documents
folder and sub-folders are gone. If the tech did not
select "create folder on Desktop" when he deleted the
user, is there a tool which will find the deleted files?
I have used about 4 different restore programs and all
seem to find my deleted files but not the old user's My
Document folder or content.
 
Hi,

If you've already tried 4 recovery programs, then you are basically out of
luck. User account data is difficult at best to recover. Another reason why
periodic backups of critical data is important. Frankly, that was a pretty
piss-poor way of resolving the issue, you might want to consider a different
"tech" next time.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Windows
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone
 
As luck had it, she had copied her pics to a photo progam
and found them. When I tried to duplicate the problem I
was promted to create a save folder for My Documents. I
don't understand why someone would "not" do that. Oh well.

Technically, I wonder what XP does different with users
data on the hard drive read/write which prevents recovery
when a user is deleted? I would would think the data is
still there because nothing as be written over it yet.
Odd.


kel
 
Hi,

It doesn't do anything different with deleted data than any other version of
Windows or most other OS's for that matter. The space is simply marked as
available, even though the data still exists (which is the premise most
freeware undelete utilities use). The problem is that every usage of the
machine overwrites this free space, and evidentally this had occured on this
machine at this particular instance in time. Why that space was used is
unknown, but it was. Recovery beyond that point would require a forensic
specialist familiar with the expensive recovery tools necessary to recollate
the data - and it wouldn't be cheap.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Windows
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone
 
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