Unformat a PC, for free.

[Daithi]

Hi, a friend of mine asked me to sort his PC, which I did and all was well.
I gave him back the PC but forgot to remove the OS installation disk (xp).
When he booted it up at home he clicked yes to everything, and ended up
formating the drive. Upside is he stopped there and the machine hasn't been
turned on since. What I want to do is to Unformat it, for free if possible. All
I've found so far is software that un-deletes. Has anyone here have any
suggestions on how I can recover his personal files ?

Thanks, Daithi.

 

[Mucky Helmetier]

Hopefully all of his perdonal files will be in a directory called windows.old

Otherwise he is pretty much screwed unless you want to spend money.

 

[cookie]

sounds like a reinstall to me.

 

[Clive]

You might get some joy with Ontrack Easy Recovery http://www.ontrack.co.uk/

i.e. install software on your machine then plug in his HD

 

[swebb]

Knoppix is the answer....

You can download a program from www.knoppix.net which is completely free and is basically a linux disc (OS on the disc) with some utilities.

You create the boot disc, then on any machine (pretty much) you can boot from the disc, it will boot into a basic linux OS GUI and interrogate your HDD (by-passing windows). If you have a USB Memory stick, you can navigate to the files you wish to retrieve, and copy them to your memory stick....

once complete, you're free to remove the disc, re-boot the pc and format/re-install as desired, safe in the knowledge that your files have been recovered first.

FANTASTIC software, truly amazing....... I had never touched Linux before, so i was concerned about the interface, but it's really very user friendly.

http://www.knoppix.net will give you the mirror sites etc for downloading the latest version.

Good luck.....

 

[Dickieboy]

Hi, a friend of mine asked me to sort his PC, which I did and all was well.
I gave him back the PC but forgot to remove the OS installation disk (xp).
When he booted it up at home he clicked yes to everything, and ended up
formating the drive. Upside is he stopped there and the machine hasn't been
turned on since. What I want to do is to Unformat it, for free if possible. All
I've found so far is software that un-deletes. Has anyone here have any
suggestions on how I can recover his personal files ?

Thanks, Daithi.

If he did a 'quick format' it will sometimes leave residual documents on the drive if you reinstall the same operating system again. If he did the plain Format all will be lost and I reckon you would need a professional to recover anything at all and it won't be cheap unless someone on-site knows different.
I think that unless there is some irreplaceable file/document/photo that needs recovering put a fresh installation on and then remember to change the boot sequence so it does'nt happen again.

 

[Daithi]

If he did a 'quick format' it will sometimes leave residual documents on the drive if you reinstall the same operating system again. If he did the plain Format all will be lost and I reckon you would need a professional to recover anything at all and it won't be cheap unless someone on-site knows different.
I think that unless there is some irreplaceable file/document/photo that needs recovering put a fresh installation on and then remember to change the boot sequence so it does'nt happen again.

I think he did a quick format, but the documents and in particular the pictures are irreplacable.
I'd be afraid to try a reinstall in case it overwrites the files I want back. I will know if I'm ok
hopefully this evening/tomorrow morning.
swebb, I've used knoppix before, it will still see a formatted drive, wont it ?

Clive thank you very much, your help was very much appreciated.
And thanks for all the suggestions, I'll let ye know how it goes.

Daithi.


Great bloody site this.

 

[Spikehammer]

Could you putthe HDD into another machine as a slave and see if you can recover anything that way, just a thought?

 

[Daithi]

Could you putthe HDD into another machine as a slave and see if you can recover anything that way, just a thought?

Yip, I should have said it before, that's what I'm doing tonight.

Thanks.

 

[swebb]

swebb, I've used knoppix before, it will still see a formatted drive, wont it ?

Great bloody site this.

Yes, it will read the data raw from the HDD, the whole point of knoppix is that it doesn't rely on anything from windows, it completely by-passes windows and uses it's own linux OS in real time running from the CD.

It will enable you to recover any data that is on the drive still. I would go as far as to say you will DEFINATELY be able to recover your pictures etc using knoppix with 0 danger of losing anything. (unless you delete it ofcourse)

This is probably the most reliable and safest way of achieving what you want to achieve.

best of luck.. let us all know how you get on.

 

[Daithi]

best of luck.. let us all know how you get on.

Thanks swebb, that worked a treat, got all the holiday snaps back along with
everything else, including the Favourites folder.
Thanks all, Daithi.