How Do You Recover Your Hd Files?

[mikenmike0001]

my old motherboard fried and i had someone replace that and the whole cpu system. I had my two hard drives and so since the guy was installing everything I lent them to him.

He ended up giving it to some tech guy who had problems with it (I guess cuz of old format)

dumbass guy i had fix and replace the whole system for some odd reason killed the master boot record (master boot drive.....whatever you call it.....the exterior part) ....so now the damn thing is dead and the data inside isn't recognized when i go into windows.....

Now when I go to "my computer" it reads the hd as free space.... is the data still there for me to retrieve or is it like almost impossible to get.

[lynx]

If it showed as unallocated space (in Drive Management) there might have been a way to recover it. If it is showing as free space (in Explorer) then most likely he repartitioned the drive and reformatted in which case the data is gone.

[accat13]

Possible solutions ...Hiren's boot cd 6.0 (http://62.253.162.19/hiren.thanki/bootcd.html)(recovery tools), its on supernova also..You can give it a shot you have nothing to loose...

[mikenmike0001]

is it pretty straight forward to use? i don't have a floppy drive installed so I can't do none of those boot up disks things

[3RA1N1AC]

best option is to use a DOS boot disc and run a data recovery program from there. as far as i know, that only works for recovering FAT data though. for NTFS data, you'd wanna get a program that runs within a Windows 2000/XP pre-installation environment (aka a WinPE boot disc, i think).

if you insist on fully booting Windows, there are plenty of Windows programs which can scan a messed-up drive to see what's still available and try to recover it. they may not quite as good as programs that run without fully booting Windows though, because Windows likes to write to hard drives whether or not you consciously save files onto them. so every moment that Windows is running, it can potentially damage your "lost" files.

i've used R-Studio to recover files from wrecked partitions, so i'll vouch for that program. it surely requires patience and may require some fiddling around with options to accurately recover your files... some of them may be recognized but unrecoverable, some of them may have minor instances of corruption, and some may be recovered in pristine condition. nevertheless it's still worth a try. this warning from R-Studio pretty much applies to all Windows-based data recovery programs:

The best way is to create an image file of the partition with the found files and write it to another hard drive or logical disk. This image can later be processed by a commercial version of R-Studio the same way as the original partition, and those files can be restored. You need free space on a disk for the image file of at least the same size as the partition and NEVER TRY TO WRITE THE IMAGE FILE OR RECOVER DELETED FILE ON THE LOGICAL DISK WHERE THE FILE HAS BEEN FOUND OR YOU MAY LOSE YOUR DATA ON THIS DISK!

We recommend you to create the image immediately, because there is a serious risk that the OS may overwrite the sectors, where the deleted files reside, in the course of its operation. If this happens, the files still may be found, but may contain incorrect data, or cannot be found at all.

Please note that, as the OS constantly writes something on disks, there is no guarantee that the data will be restored correctly from the image, because the files may have been already corrupted before the image file is created. An image file only guarantees that it would contain exact data copy from the disk at the moment when the image file has been created. Nevertheless, there is always a chance that the data will be recovered successfully.

regardless of which program you use, you'll want to read the instructions thoroughly and consult their FAQ frequently while you use the program. this is the sort of work that you would otherwise pay several hundred dollars for a specialist to perform... but luckily you shouldn't have to resort to that, since it sounds like your drive is still in good mechanical condition & doesn't need to be disassembled or anything. just remember to be calm and proceed cautiously, so that your data does not get damaged any further than it already has been.

[accat13]

Originally posted by mikenmike0001@13 August 2004 - 03:00
is it pretty straight forward to use? i don't have a floppy drive installed so I can't do none of those boot up disks things
hate to tell you this but Hiren's is aprox 40mb its a cd it boots from your cdrom with many assorted tools.Nice to have around when problems creep up.. B)

[mikenmike0001]

is there a torrent or verified kazaa file for that?

[Virtualbody1234]

Try this link: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.chambe...irenbootcd6.zip (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.chambers67/tools/hirenbootcd6.zip)

And if that doesn't work then try: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=...iso&btnG=Search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=Hiren%27s+Bootcd+6.0.iso&btnG=Search)

[tesco]

Originally posted by Virtualbody1234@20 August 2004 - 15:50
Try this link: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.chambe...irenbootcd6.zip (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.chambers67/tools/hirenbootcd6.zip)

And if that doesn't work then try: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=...iso&btnG=Search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=Hiren%27s+Bootcd+6.0.iso&btnG=Search)
don't u hate repeating the exact same thing in every thread :lol:

[Virtualbody1234]

Originally posted by ROSSCO_2004+20 August 2004 - 15:23--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (ROSSCO_2004 @ 20 August 2004 - 15:23)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Virtualbody1234@20 August 2004 - 15:50
Try this link: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.chambe...irenbootcd6.zip (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.chambers67/tools/hirenbootcd6.zip)

And if that doesn&#39;t work then try: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=...iso&btnG=Search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=Hiren%27s+Bootcd+6.0.iso&btnG=Search)
don&#39;t u hate repeating the exact same thing in every thread :lol: [/b][/quote]
Only trying to be helpful. :lol:

[peat moss]

Originally posted by Virtualbody1234+20 August 2004 - 17:39--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Virtualbody1234 @ 20 August 2004 - 17:39)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
Originally posted by ROSSCO_2004@20 August 2004 - 15:23
<!--QuoteBegin-Virtualbody1234@20 August 2004 - 15:50
Try this link: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.chambe...irenbootcd6.zip (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.chambers67/tools/hirenbootcd6.zip)

And if that doesn&#39;t work then try: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=...iso&btnG=Search (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=Hiren%27s+Bootcd+6.0.iso&btnG=Search)
don&#39;t u hate repeating the exact same thing in every thread :lol:
Only trying to be helpful. :lol: [/b][/quote]
VB your great, glad you stepped down .Now all you have to do is help us butt heads , instead of trying to moderate us. :lol:

[Duffman]

so who is our mod now?

[tesco]

Originally posted by Duffman3@20 August 2004 - 23:29
so who is our mod now?
no one. :(

well, everyone on the mod team i guess. :unsure:

[Duffman]

hmmmm.....