Recover data after reinstall W7

I had to reinstall Win7 on my laptop, and I used to have a Google drive folder where I uploaded my documents directly from my laptop. After I reinstalled W7, and went into my google drive I could only see documents that were uploaded until april, and the remaining were not present.
I found this software Easus Data Recovery that says it can revive all the files after a formatting/installing, but it only finds some of those documents and only until april.
So I wanted to know if you know a way to recover those data either with this software or another one.

thanks in advance.

 

try going into your c drive folders and looking for window.old and hopefully a backup will have been stored in that folder.

 

I can't see a window.old folder in my C drive, and folders are not hidden.

 

That would mean unless you were upgrading only W7 it probably wipe out all the previous data and folders on the format process. You going to have to find a program utility that unformats the format you did and hopefully your data is still intact to find your documents otherwise if it can't find it your documents are gone as a result of the formatting. Also if it doesn't show on Google that would mean it never got uploaded to Google docs. So unless you can unformat your computer your not going to be able to retrieve those docs. If I were you take out the drive to prevent any further writings to it should you want to unformat and recover that drive installing more programs decreases your chance you will find your data. I use killdisk undelete to find my lost program and unformat but that program isn't cheap but it seems to do the job for me. But take the drive out and use another drive for your main and attach the formatted drive as USB and hopefully the program you use will unformat it so you can find your docs.

 

Before I reformatted I could see those files in my google drive folder on my pc, so I guessed they were uploaded.
no it was not an upgrade but just a fresh install.

 

soz, missed the s of windows.old

try this for windows 7 http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/16282-windows-old-folder-restore-into-new-installation.html

this is for windows 8 How to retrieve files from the Windows.old folder - Microsoft Windows

 

Tried it but can't find that folder, is this a folder that creates if windows is upgraded, coz I have just reinstalled the existing W7.

 

Depending on your reinstall settings, the folder will or will not be there.

 

How is it possible to activate this feature (windows.old) during a reinstall? I can't remember I saw any info regarding this when I installed W7.

 

Typically it goes something like this:

When at drives configuration form you keep all the partitions intact but just want a re-install then it will save the old windows folders.
If the partitions are deleted and recreated then all data was deleted with a warning message.

I'm not well versed in data recovery because I backup and verify fanatically.

One thing if you can do it is to follow StormJumper's advice and stop writing to the drive. Probably a lot has been lost already and unrecoverable from windows writing the new files over the existing one's.

 

Jee, stop misleading a guy! He said he did a clean install. He doesn't need to delete/repartition to make a clean windows install without anything else. Just simple format deletes everything so there is nothing to put in that Winold folder.

The real question is how to restore those files and why he doesn't see them at all.

No matter how it ends you must create 2 partitions on the HDD if you want this never happen again. 1 should be C as OS drive (50-100GB depending on how much professional and big software you are going to install) and D as DATA drive for everything else. This is minimum what you should do and hold all your documents there (Just pressing right click you should move My Documents folder to the D drive and select "move" and then move al other folders from USER folder to the moved Documents folder).

As about your documents... I use R-Studio but it is better and easier for recovering lost partitions however recovering files are OK too. But it is kinda complicated.
Try to find out other ways like doublecheck google

 

I don't think we are misleading. But we might be mislead.

If we presume to know that the OP is certain of what they did, then all is lost. But what if maybe they didn't describe it properly?

I didn't see the use of the Clean command - so maybe there's hope left.

 

when ive reinstalled windows ive done a dban nuke format and that will wipe the whole drive which you cannot get anything back.
ive also just reinstalled windows as a new install over the top of the existing install and this has always saved a windows.old folder in either
c - program files - windows.old or
c - program files (x86) - windows.old
i cant remember which

the question from the OP original post is "formatting/installing"
did you just put the disk in and reinstall windows as a new install or did you request a format and did you get the warning of clean command.

 

Typically, I believe the basic Format during an install is of the Quick format spec. Even further, using the Format button to manually create partitions and format it still remains a Quick format.
Not until a command prompt is used can there be an over-riding. I think this is built-in now due to the large drive sizes time to format and error corrections that have improved on HDD's.
This is why it is imperative to stop writing to the drive if another is available.

Dban is a great program - but - I caution use on an SSD unless you're very aware of what you're doing and how the program works.

 

never used it on a ssd before. its been on 2 western digital scorpio black drives.

i always wondered how different it would be on a ssd like my crucial m4.
whats the recommended way of wiping a drive and doing a clean install if i ever need to do one. hope not

 

Hey MrDJ,

You can at the Language selection form during an install press Shift+F10 which will call the command prompt and then use DiskPart. DiskPart Command-Line Options

There are some commands for cleaning only the MBR (good for SSD) and then wiping (Unnecessary for re-installs).

I'm just hesitant to post anything further in this forum unless there is a dedicated thread - too easy for someone to get into trouble with it.

I'll PM you my basic outline in a minute.

 

I am confused of how those files could appear on my laptop, but were not uploaded to Google drive.
The program you mention to reverse the format process is it called Killdisk?

 

The company is called KillDisk.

They offer multiple tools: Data Recovery tools, Data Security tools, Data Backup tool.

You will still run into the problem of over-writes or partial over-writes that in most cases will be unrecoverable.

----

 

got the pm. thanks for that. + rep

 

If I want to wipe a SSD, I boot under parted magic and ask it to perform a secure erase. It will reset the voltage on all NAND (setting it back to zeros), it will avoid writing to the drive like DBAN would. The Intel SSD toolbox also allows you to perform a secure erase if you have an Intel SSD.

 

No the company name is KillDisk but the program is called killdisk undelete that is the name the folder indicated to me. Well not showing up on Google means it probably made copy to your local temp store folder of Google but the actual upload either didn't complete or was interrupted along the backup process that may be the reason why your Cloud Google drive doesn't show the files uploaded. That would be the most plausible happening right now that I can see. This is why I advocate before wiping any drives clean make sure your backups are where they are suppose to be before formatting or wiping a HDD clean or reformatting a drive. Cause sometimes the recover process will be time consuming or you chance of getting any data back could be 50/50 or Zero recovery or recovered but so corrupted that it's unusable.

 

StormJumper,
I can find many files in a temporary folder on Google drive, but I am not sure if all of those I need are accessible. However its going to take a lot time to go through it. I find those recovery programs too complicated as the files they retrieve aren't identical to those I am used to. So I am going to go through the temporary folder and find them one by one. Thanks for the tip

 

Temp folder are good and bad sometimes if the recovery program find the files it sometimes rename the files which makes matters worse....But I know they are hard to use but when they work they work good but I used others recovery program sometimes renames the file and that confuses myself more and so far with Killdisk Undelete it has found my files and didn't rename but asked save the recovered to another location which works good for me.