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The cool news is that I bought a new computer. The bad news is that I told my daughter that she could have my old computer. There wasn't much room on it for memory so she proceeded to delete all of the files on the machine even though I told her not to change anything. My tax returns, photos that I have had for years, all of my I-pod music etc it's all gone. She deleted it all and then emptied the trash folder.

So what is the cheapest way to retrieve all of my info? Really am upset right now, but haven't killed the 10 year old kid yet. Her welfare is in your hands. Do I have to ground her for the rest of her life or is my info retrieveable somehow?

Thanks for the rescue in advance.

Rick

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I used a program called Recover My Files and retrieved everything off a hard drive that suddenly looked unformatted to the OS. Good program!

Mount the old drive in a USB enclosure, plug it into your new machine and run a recovery program.

Good Luck

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Second to yaadbird's suggestion..

Whatever you do, try to minimize anyting written to that drive. each write could be going over the older files.

Our guys use a special controller that's always readonly - so nothing on the drive can be corupted.

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Yes, using a recovery program can get the data back, but each and every usage of the machine (including running a recovery program) runs the risk of data being overwritten by general OS houskeeping operations. When files are deleted, the data stays there, just the index to that data is deleted. The system now thinks those areas of the HD are free space and writes in that space as needed wnenever the HD is used. The more you use the machine, the more of the data that was left there is being overwritten.

For the best chance to save the data, STOP using the machine NOW. You can take it to a service center, but make sure they guarantee recovering the data. You don't want someone attempting to do it and wiping it over in the process (as BerKim mentioned, there are systems setup to prevent this). For the best chance of full recovery, take the drive out and send it to a place called DriveSavers in San Rafael, CA. They can crack the HD case, pull the drive platten out and scan it in a clean room environment, sector by sector to pull the 0's and 1's right out in order. They then use recovery software that reassembles the data in correct order and can do a 100% recovery if the info has not been overwritten by subsequent disk operations. They can even recover data that lays under under a previous write pass if it has been written over.

The process runs about 2k (thats right $2000), but you need to decide what this data is worth to you. A poor attempt at recovery can actually destroy the data and then no one can recover it for you at any cost.

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We've all become so used to having computers in our lives, that we've almost become dependant on them. E-mails, digital photos, home movies, tax records, bank statements, credit card info, etc. It all seems so easy to store right there on your computer.

I recently had a minor crash, and I got back all my files, but lost all my e-mails. I use e-mails to send myself reminders, and keep track of things, so I feel like I lost something very important, but I reminded myself that it is only electronic data. Not oxygen. So I made a fresh OS on a new hard drive, and moved on.

I hope you had paper copies of your tax records :ph34r:

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Best of luck to whichever method you choose. Personally, I ALWAYS back up important files either on a portable hard drive, or blank cd/dvds.

Hindsight is allways 20/20 though.

Edited by Pharaoh Bender
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Hey Clay1 (pardon the slight thread drift)

I don't want come off sounding preachey, but I would be leery of giving a 10 yr old daughter (or son) a computer, especially one connected to the internet.

My girlfriend's daughter was/is basically addicted to her Xanga and Myspace sites. Then there is all this IM'ing going on.

Remember the good ol' days when kids used to go outside and play in all sorts of weather?

Remember when they used to interact w/ other kids face to face (and sometimes fist to face, LOL)?

Granted, Myspace has said that they have done things to make "myspacing" safer, but I am sure there are creepey enough guys out there who have found ways to work around their security measures.

Just something to keep in mind.

Oh yeah....if she says something about being able to download music for her Ipod or whatever and that's why she needs internet access, well, there are ways around that too. Me, I'm cheap, I have gone to the library before for CD's.

Anywhooooo....sorry to come off preachey...just saying I have been down that road already.

Edited by Chills1994
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I did some reasearch on backup software a while back. What's fascinating is how much worth people put on old data they never really use again.. take digital photos-- everybody with a digital camera has a ton, and would be really upset if they lost them, but when was the last time they looked at 99% of them.

I know I have a stack of CD's I'd be pissed if I lost, but haven't even dusted off in 5 years...

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Chills, the machine in my daughter's room was so that she could play a couple of games that I bought her and do her homework. It wasn't connected to the internet. The new machine that is connected to the internet is in the living room so that anyone that uses it can be seen by everyone.

On the digital photos. I know that I won't look at many of them but a few of them I really wanted to keep. One of the files was a video of my son doing his first draws from the holster. I looked at that within the last couple of weeks and thought how nice it was to have that captured. I have been working on a large building project that has spanned 3 years of my time and I have documented my process - that's all gone. You're right that some of it was just used up space that I would probably never look at again though.

I found some USB hard drive enclosures and a free download for retrieval that I will try. If I get some of it back I get it back if I don't the world will continue forward.

Rick

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Thats what I like to hear, Rick. Sounds like you are on top of things.

I have alot of "before & after" pics of my house (my 1st "owned" home) and what I've been doing to fix it up, and while that's important to me, I might be disapointed for awhile, I won't kill myself if I lost them to another 'puter crash. I seem to have hard drives crash every 3 or 4 years or so, yet I never seem to prepare for that by doing backups.

Hmmmmm ............ :rolleyes:

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