First of this is my first forum posting & i`m desperate for any possible solutions to my bro`s problem. Also we would hugely appreciate any attempts from the members here at any suggestions.

To cut a long story short! A problems arose on his computer a little while ago which resulted in him having to reformat his internal hard drive (windows version etc)
Having a lot of music & data on his comp before-hand which he was desperate not to lose (not to mention private info about his now adopted son, which is precious to my bro and the background of the child)

He proceeded to move all said info from internal to external hard drive,in preperation for the format and reinstalation of windows to his comp.

Having done the reinstalation and installing all drivers needed` he proceeded to check on files moved from internal hard drive to external, and then realised alot of the info etc was missing which should have been there as there was no error messages at the time of moving info from one to the other.
Question is ------- Would there be a possible solution out there as in a program etc that could be purchased/downloaded begged stolen or borrowed to reclaim the lost info and restore it.
Or even if someone knows of any way possible then please reveal all. THANX IN ADVANCE to all and anyone.

I believe when he formatted the internal hard drive it was just on a quick format and not the lengthy one that you can choose, so may help his cause a little.

Once again thanx to any and ALL.

There are a few data recovery programs around, though if windows has been reinstalled and some files copied, the quality of the data may be beyond standard software recovery.

You can get one program called FreeUndelete or look for things like Runtime GetDataBack or Encase. Those aren't free but Encase was developed for police forensics so if that can't do it the only things left would be seriously expensive..

here u go bro

there is a software called ghost ..download it and it wil reinstall all of ur lost prog.

n it works definately.

cheers...

If you're talking about the standard ghosting (ie Norton/Symantec) software, this will not help at all in these circumstances.

Ghost creates an image file of the data currently on a hard drive. It does not take any information whatsoever which remains physically on the hard drive but is no longer referenced due to having been deleted.

Ghost is useful for making a full backup of the live data on a hard drive before doing any work and being able to restore it should any troubles be encountered. It is not designed for data recovery and has no functions to do such operations..

Thanx for the suggestions and i will certainly be passing on all to me Bro!

I'm a bit late but I'll still say this. Stay away from Norton/Symantec proucts, they take up way to much system resources. I highly suggest you go after Acronis TrueImage, I swear by it! You can back up entire hard disk and then if you reformat your disk or lose any data you can just restore everything in a flash, it's a bit like Norton Ghost but better.

I'd also suggest that you buy a USB Flash Drive which is like a portable hard drive the size of your thumb and data can be transfered to and from quickly and simply. They vary is price according to the sizes which are 128MB to 4GB. I have a 1GB one from PC World and it was under 20 quid, I really couldn't live without it and it's the perfect way to save important data.

I emailed my dad last night and this is his suggestion:

I think his best bet would be a company specializing in information retrieval. BEFORE putting anything more on the reformatted hard drive. I find it strange that he didn't check the backup before doing the reformat.

It isn't that strange really, people are always missing what would seem like a common sense step because they just assume that things have done what they were supposed to. It is just as easy for specialists to do it as well!

Hi,

A data recovery company will be able to get the data back - even if you feel up the drive (in most cases) - many companies other a no fee if they cant get it back. This cost a lot of money sometimes hundreads or thousands. Look at companies like OnTrack, but there are plenty around.

Another approach might be in install windows on another HDD or partition (assuming you have one) then attempt to view the files on the corrupt drive...assuming of course it is still readable...be sure you have some sort of anti virus as there is likely something goning on with one or more of the bad disk files that appear to be lost or not currently readable.

I have successfully recovered files several times for many people this way and it cost much less (for a second drive) and much less time than running a file recovery program. If you must, there are several recovery programs available either to purchase/beg/borrow ... from many torrent/warez sites.

It sounds like by your description of what has gone on the partition may have already been formatted and windows reinstalled...I say good luck recovering the files (not impossible but it will take alot of time using any number of the recovery programs available).

I have software that I could send to you that will work.
Remember that the problem may arise again if it is a virus as he may have transferred the virus to and from the internal drive to external one and then back again.

have you check to see if the drive has error's on it if not use spinrite 6 it fixes most drives with out reformating data bit like scandisc but does hell of alot more !

its not free best money you will ever spend.but do not have it ? if you look about you can find copy on share sites ?

im not sure itd be easy or possible to get anything back unfortunately, in future its worth being aware there are two definitions of broken so to speak.

windows can break or the hard drive can break.

depending on which it is different install strategies can help prevent important data loss.

in the first instance broken windows just means having to reinstall it. In this sitution a partition is what you want. this is like splitting the drive in half into two virtual drives. windows sees it like this so you get like a c: and a d:
install windows in c: and put all your data in d:. if windows breaks format the c: partion and the d: partition is still there sitting pretty.

to head off the second you want 2+ harddrives. windows and applications one one and data on the other.

i do a mix of both 3 hard drives

c: games 200gb (disk1)
d: windows (it happened like this by accident) 30gb (disk1)
e: temp + installers + docs 20gb (disk2)
g: stuff to watch 130gb (disk2)
h: stuff to keep 140gb (disk3)
hidden partition of old comp windows install 10gb (disk3)

keep my email in gmail and bookmarks in firefox google browser sync

if windows breaks as it did recently I dont loose anything important and have an accessible folder with all my frequently used application installers in.

seems complicated but it helps to mimise data loss and downtime.