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iv had to restore my system totally back to the way it was (all the default settings),i seem to have lost all my pictures/music/everything . any ideas how i can retrieve them ?theyl b on the hard disk somewhere eh?all my bookmarks and everything have dissapeared :help:

Laptop or Desktop?

How did you "restore"

Did you get any warnings about making backups?

If you're lucky, the majority of files will have the header information removed from the partition table, and will not have been overwritten.

Like SoulKiss said, it depends how you restored/backed up the system.

A decent file recovery program (like Restoration - free download executable link there, not a virus, in case you're concerned) should be able to recover most of it.

Depends how much you need to recover data, but there are professionals that you can pay to get data recovered. If it's just music/pictures, it might not be worth the expense though.

Moral of the story... backup backup backup! Then backup the backups somewhere!

i used the built in 'compaq system restore',and i dont know how to make a back up ,ill try that link and fumble through it and if i get it back ill b on again asking ;how do i back it up' just in case it all goes pete tong .and re price of professional bods to do it ,as baph said its not really worth it.il let you know how i got on ,cheers guys :wink(:ps its a desktop home pc.compaq presario 120gb 256k 3200mhz does that matter?)

The spec of the machine doesn't matter, it's the same for all machines.

Looks like you've learnt why not to use manufacturer restore CDs :lol:

Restoration won't harm anything, it just tries to re-create files that have been deleted. However, sometimes this is only partial files (not much good for music/movies/pictures), and sometimes, there's nothing of the file left.

There are more powerful tools to use, but these rely on knowledge of the underlaying file system, which is beyond most mere mortals (hence why the professionals charge so much).

Let us know if you still have problems, and I'm sure there's loads of people that can advise on a backup policy/procedure for you :)

If you used a system restore tool from the manufacturer then I think you are wasting your time.

Hope I am wrong tho

David

IIRC the compaq restore disk formats the HDD and then installs the OS again.. so you're only option is to send the HDD away to a specialist data recovery company or purchase some software that might get it back. Depends how the software when it restored your machine formatted the HDD.

Either way its probably not going to be cheap to get the data back...

Depends how it formats it, you could be right, but most of the data still could be recoverable.

A typical format doesn't write to the disc's data area in itself, generally only low-level format's do that. A typical format (eg, done by Windows install) will just write a new FAT (yes, even in the case of NTFS), and tag the disc with where the partitions start/end.

i guess its all gone then :cry: i clicked on that link and saved it but when i try to run the program nothing happens i cant get it to operate ,it teels me about the prog _that its an app)but other than that nada ,zilch .im running a internet recover my files thing ,its only an evaluation trial mode but thisll let me see if i can get them back,is their any others that you know about thatl actually do it (and their free )i use limewire so i can prob steal it from another p2p ,but im not paying for a proper recovery ,il just start again if i need to ,thanks a lot guys :wink: (wish i knew about this stuff)

Figured it was worthy of over emphasis. The website is here. This details data recovery from a computer that has not only had the disk formatted, but the partition tables have been changed as well! So not only has it been wiped, but it's also been resized!

Page 5 onwards of the article details applications to use. Basically, TESTDISK is your best friend. But take your time, and be careful. If it doesn't work, you've lost time, nothing else (hopefully).