Omgg!!!! Help!!!!!!!

i was uninstalling something installed on a drive and it somehow deleted EVERYTHING on the drive!!!! IS THERE ANYWAY I CAN GET IT BACK?!?! IM USING WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION! PLZ HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

what message did you get?

can you get into windows?

 

well i was uninstalling neverwinter nights, and it was installed on my F drive, and when i was installing it, it said there other files related to neverwinter nights and if i wanted to delete those, i said sure, cuz i thought it was nwn files. but suddenly it started deleting everything! it just said deleting: (names of all my folders). now my hard drive says theres like 99% free space, whereas before there was like 2%....

is there anything i can do????? a registry back up wont fix it right?

 

i just want to salvage 1 file, thats all

 

uhm.. if you destroyed only the windows folder just connect the drive to a different computer or use an enclusure to save the data.

or another idea to use a linux boot disc to see if your hd was really flushed. if you cant get into windows.

Dont know if this will help but read it there is a possibility that the data was just deleted from the index and possibly still able to recover.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1139&page=1

 

i mean im using the same computer. its the not the main drive that got deleted, its just another drive i added later, just some important files. i can still get in windows. will a system restore point bring it back?

 

thats easy.

DO NOT do System Restore (it usually screws things up more)

make sure you do not put any more files on that drive before recovering the data that you want.

use GetDataBack for NTFS

its extremely easy to use.
- scan your drive that has the lost data
- then scroll through the drive and copy the data that you want to save to another location

 

OMG!!! AWESOME!!! but what if i have to restart my comp? can i do that or should i keep it on?

 

hey thats the program that i used when i accidently formated kinda while trying out Darik's Boot and Nuke (which i have to say is a supurb way of getting rid of data)

 

you can restart.

the main thing is to make sure that the drive with the lost data remains untouched.

 

ive clicked around in the folders, but didnt move anything in or out, and ive done a search in the drive, but thats it. is that ok?

 

thats fine, as long as there is no data added into the drive in question.

 

You might want to disable the appearance and settings option to generate thumbs.db files. Otherwise, if you navigate to any folders with images/movies you could write a file to the disk.

Ideally, you would disable all unnecessary services (especially defragmentation services) and not touch the drive with anything other than the file recovery utility.

Furthermore, if you have another larger drive, you could dump an image of the damaged partition in its current state so that you have something to work with if you make any mistakes.

 

I don't seem how getting the thumbs.db file is of any use, since you are only cache files for pictures. Anyways, if you want to get them go to any folder -> tools -> folder options -> view -> uncheck protected system files

When you deleted something, the file(s) is simply removed from the index and the actual file (the raw data that is) stays on the HD. Windows marks them as available and they are overwritten (in part or in whole) when you use the drive. As Gophn said, don't add anything to the drive and try a recovery software. If that doesn't help, you could also try a professional data recovery service (they are usually a bit expensive though)

 

OH MY GOD ITS THERE!!! THANKS SO MUCH GOPHN!! I LOVE YOU!!!

only problem is...i can copy and paste only in registered version. ill buy this program, but first i would like to know if there are any free programs out there i can do this with?

 

PC Inspector File Recovery 4.0
Recuva

 

Congrats! I'm sure that was a big relief but truthfully I would pay immediately for the program that got my files back, it's sort of like, what's it worth to you?

 

Glad to see that it worked.

The program is very useful to have around, because it can be used for other people that you know (with the same problem of lost data).

 

Well, ive been waiting to get an extra hard drive so i copy my files to that hard drive. well, i did get a hard drive, but i think at some point, my brother may have saved something on the drive in question...BEFORE the problem was taken care of...and now when i run the program, it does not show all the files. is there anything i can do or am i totally screwed? =(

 

just get a USB pen drive or something to copy out the most important file(s) to you.

Seriously, refrain from anymore more activity on the drive in question... because the data might get corrupted if another file is written over a lost data's sectors.

 

yeah i put in the new drive and am in the process of copying everything right now, but is there any other way to recover the data that isnt coming up anymore? or is that gone forever?

 

its not that its gone forever, there are multiple folders that show up when using the GetDataback program that shows files that might have been overwritten...

look at all of the folders... especially the ones that have numbered ones... which are boot-records that is put into the form of folders/files.