DaFloyd
03-16-2007, 10:56 PM
I have a buddy at work that lost 90% of his hard drive a few days ago, I was wondering if anyone knew of some good (windows freeware) recovery software that might help him out.
It seems that anything in My Documents, My Music and My Pictures is gone, but (some) stuff outside those folders is still there. Unfortunately most everything was in there. He thinks it was a power outage that caused it, but computer was turned off at the time, and he says he has a surge protector on the computer, as well as on the dial up phone line. A few items he has located in the recycle bin, and he did not throw them out. He also says he has updated virus definations. Seems wacky, but that is what he is left with. A couple of suggestions I had for him was to first go to "my computer" and see how much info is actually on the computer, he originally had 60GB used out of 180, so if he is down to 10GB used, the info is gone. If "my computer" says he still has 60GB used, then he should do a search for "*.mp3" and /or "*.jpg" to see if they got put somewhere else. A last resort, and with hesitations, he might re-install windows to see if that would help. I have never had to use any recovery software, so I am not sure if re-installing windows would hinder the recovery or not.
Anyone out there have any other ideas or suggestions?? Any help you could give me to help him out would be much appreciated. DaFloyd
It seems that anything in My Documents, My Music and My Pictures is gone, but (some) stuff outside those folders is still there. Unfortunately most everything was in there. He thinks it was a power outage that caused it, but computer was turned off at the time, and he says he has a surge protector on the computer, as well as on the dial up phone line. A few items he has located in the recycle bin, and he did not throw them out. He also says he has updated virus definations. Seems wacky, but that is what he is left with. A couple of suggestions I had for him was to first go to "my computer" and see how much info is actually on the computer, he originally had 60GB used out of 180, so if he is down to 10GB used, the info is gone. If "my computer" says he still has 60GB used, then he should do a search for "*.mp3" and /or "*.jpg" to see if they got put somewhere else. A last resort, and with hesitations, he might re-install windows to see if that would help. I have never had to use any recovery software, so I am not sure if re-installing windows would hinder the recovery or not.
Anyone out there have any other ideas or suggestions?? Any help you could give me to help him out would be much appreciated. DaFloyd