UKC

I've seriously and utterly screwed up with my computer So stressed out it's unreal!

Bought a brand new PC and have been busy for a good part of the evening moving all important documents, emails and photos onto memory sticks. I stupidly didn't make copies thinking, 'hey, how hard can it be to transfer stuff onto a memory stick, what could possibly go wrong?' Hah f*cking hah!

Every single word document that has been supposedly saved onto the memory stick has a corrupt message that comes up and won't open. I have saved a massive file with 2 years worth of University work and it's all gone. The memory stick says that the file is empty!

What can I do?

To get it onto the memory stick, I clicked on a file/document so it was highlighted and then I clicked 'move' and moved it onto the USB stick. Did it that way rather than copy to USB stick (stupid, stupid, stupid!)

Am I going to have to take my pc into a shop to see if they can find everything that's been lost or can I do a system restore thing? And if system restore works then how do I do that?

Any advice (in computer thicko terms please as I really don't have a clue

In reply to Sonya Mc: I think it depends on where the documents were saved. System restore wont touch anything in the My Documents, or other user document areas as far as I am aware. You will probably do more harm than good trying it..

Use that drive / computer with the lost documents as little as possible as the documents will still be there just marked to be overwritten. Generating lots of new files (Such as internet tempt files) is a bad thing and you risk overwriting the documents that you are trying to save.

Use your other computer to find some document recovery software which has been recommended. There are loads available with a search on Google. Transfer it to the other computer and install it and see what you can recover. You will need the file names/ locations at a guess. You will get a free trial which will let you see what is recoverable but you will have to pay to use it to do the recovery.

I've never had to do it so can't help any more than that. If you are not sure I would avoid using it too much and take it somewhere to get the important info back.

I take it you have tried the memory stick in both computers?

In reply to Sonya Mc: I don't know the answer to your question, but in theory the work should still be on your PC, but finding it may be a pain/impossible if you are not a forensic computer scientist.

That said I trust you have been using google? Anyone who seems to know how to fix computers tends to just know how to find the answers on the internet. Others out there will definitely of done this and hopefully they found their answers!

Good luck!

In reply to Sonya Mc:

The most important thing you can do now is to stop using the computer that had the documents on originally.

Is it a laptop or a desktop?

Is the new computer a laptop or a desktop?

If both are desktop computers, then I would suggest you remove the HDD from the "source" computer, and fit as a second drive in the new computer.

And have a look at PhotoRec

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhotoRec

That should be able to check through all the "deleted" files on your old hard drive, and recover them to a folder on your new computer, then at least you can sort though them.


It is important to stop using the old computer, as it will be writing new files to the disk all the time it is used, and that increases the likelihood that it will use the space that was allocated to a deleted file, or part of a deleted file.

Don't even boot it up.

If the computer (or both computers) are laptops, then it's generally more tricky to remove HDDs from them, it depends on the make and model. But I would still remove the disk, and get a USB caddy to fit the drive into so you can recover files from it on another computer.

There are other scenarios, but they depend on what your hardware is, and I haven't got enough info for that.

In reply to Dominion: Not (see above posts) recommended, but I had a similar problem a few weeks back when a supposedly saved file had nothing in the folder.

I downloaded a bit of freeware to look through deleted files (this was on Ubuntu, not Windows, but same principles apply) to see if there were any remnants/old files on the hard disc. There were loads. Thousands of files came up (worth being specific when you try to recover things- I limited the search to .doc files). Amongst them were multiple copies of the file I wanted, at various stages throughout its development, so I saved a recent one and- job done.

What I didn't do was to stop using my desktop, as advised, and search from a second computer. I realise one should do this to prevent overwriting of important data, but my feeling is that hard disks are so huge these days that you'd be unlucky not to find a cpoy of what you want, simply becasue there are probably lots of copies of it, particularly if the important document was actually created on the computer concerned.

So, whilst I can't recommend you do what I did, it worked for me.

Secondly, if you really are a computer novice, its at leat worth getting someone at least slightly geeky to try and recover the documents. Can get a bit involved.

In reply to Sonya Mc:

I'd do what Dominion and others suggest and don't delete or do anything else with your old computer in case you really do lose something important.

I have had excellent results from using some software called Pandora Recovery. This app has seriously saved my bacon quite a few times, when I deleted all of my photo collection for one year, thinking that I'd saved it to an external hard drive. I've also used it to recover some very important work documents that got zapped from the drive when learning to use some synchronising software.

This is probably the simplest and best recovery tool that I have used, and I've tried most of the free tools when I was in your position last year.

http://www.pandorarecovery.com/

I tried Dom's PhotoRec a few years back on my and a friends Windows Operating Systems but it did more harm than good and ended up needing a full re-instilation of both operating systems.

Pretty much what Dom said.

Livecd/usb and photorec would be what I'd do first.

Best to get someone in the know, most advanced Linux users will be able to pull your files back. Would probably do it for free, too. If you can afford an international courier I could have a look at it provided it's a SATA disk, but best to find someone local.

As Dom says, key point is to not write *anything* to the old disk now, mount it read-only if mounted at all.

It's likely all your data is still there...Unless it's been inadvertently overwritten of course. Then you're screwed.

Just remember, don't let anyone write to the disk. If they don't understand the importance of that they don't know what they're doing. Normally the first thing one would do is make a clone of the disk and work on that.

Thanks for all the advice everyone.

The PC is a desktop pc not a laptop and I've stopped using it, on our laptop instead now. Am going to take the tower into the shop where I bought the new pc and see if they can recover everything and will take the memory stick there too. They have a good reputation so hopefully should be able to do something.

Not willing to download software and try myself as I'd probably end up f*cking things up more.

If you don't get any luck with them Sonya give me a call and I'll take a look at it. Though it would be Tuesday before I could work on it as my recovery software is in work and I can't get in to pick it up until then.

Gordon

In reply to Sonya Mc:


Bad luck! If it was me I'd go straight to 1000rpm. Not that I think they're wonderful, I just don't see any other options in this part of the world...

In reply to Siward:


Yep, that's something that is easy to miss. There is an option in PhotoRec to filter what it recovers by deselecting what you don't want to bother recovering, which can speed the process up. So, if it's just a .doc the OP wants, then de-select everything else.


You have a point, to a certain extent - but you only have to be unlucky once.

And since Sonya has already said she has two computers, then she has the facility there already to do it, so I'd play safe.

Even if you only have one computer, and it's a desktop, in these circumstances, and it was my important document, I'd buy a 2nd hard drive, install an OS onto that, and then use that to attempt recovery from the other disk.

Disks are £20 or so, 2 years worth of work is worth a lot more than that.


For what it's worth, for all techies on here, I have one of these USB / eSata SATA docking bays by StarTech for plugging 2.5 or 3.5in sata drives into, which is perfect for recovering data from (or to) (and for loads of other purposes, too). It's very, very useful at work.

http://www.misco.co.uk/product/153813/Startech-SATA-Docking-Station

In reply to gmilne: Gordon, you genius, yay! Off to TCA in about 10mins but could drop it off at some point before tuesday. No mega rush to work on it as I've got my new pc and laptop in the meantime. Although the sooner I know whether I can get my Uni stuff back the better obviously.

I'll be at AVW Tues eve if your heading down then, if not give me a call when your near Forfar and I'll meet up with you and get it.