I made a HUGE mistake....

[gynuine69]

In desperate attempts to fix a hardware problem, i decided to reinstall windows XP on my HD. I have a 250 gig HD with 30gigs dedicated to my OS and the rest dedicated to file storage. Before my initial reinstallatino, I moved all of the files (documents, pictures, etc) from my C: drive to my D: to be saved during the format. Unfortunately, i goofed and windows was formatted on my D: drive and installed XP. Ive used stellerinfo and GetDataBack and they have yielded me the same results. the Data i find on my D: drive dates back to when i first installed or transfered the information on the HD. (ive had the HD since about feb/march) and doesnt find most of my Mp3, vids, etc that were added in that time span. The most recent it does show however are the the doc's and pics, i moved over right before the install. Has windows written over these missing files? I would assume not seeing that I was about 50% full on a 200 gig partition. Any idea on why such programs arent retrieving these files? (windows is about a 2-3 gig install, and the files that arent being showed are way more than that) Also. stuff deleted from my recycling bin arent seen either. Any thoughts? I would love to retrieve as much as possible. I am going to try the RMF software tonight to see if it can give me any better results.

[GDH]

Hi,

Sorry, I am a bit confused....is this right.....?

You have 1 x 250gb drive in your PC.
The drive is divided into a 30gb C: drive, and a 220gb D: drive.

You moved user files from C: to D:
You accidentially formatted drive D: and installed Windows XP on it.

Now when you try and recover the files from drive D: you can only find the files that you recently moved? but not the files that were already stored on this drive?

Is this right?

[gynuine69]

Originally Posted by GDH

Hi,

Sorry, I am a bit confused....is this right.....?

You have 1 x 250gb drive in your PC.
The drive is divided into a 30gb C: drive, and a 220gb D: drive.

You moved user files from C: to D:
You accidentially formatted drive D: and installed Windows XP on it.

Now when you try and recover the files from drive D: you can only find the files that you recently moved? but not the files that were already stored on this drive?

Is this right?

Everything is correct except for the last part.

When i try and recover the files from drive D:, I can only find the files that I recently moved from C: And the rest of the files I see are from when i FIRST moved them to the drive (i.e. when i first installed the drive) What i am not seeing are files that were stored from a couple of days, weeks or a couple of months before.

For example, I downloaded some MP3's on to drive D: a couple of weeks ago and those are no where to be found. However, there are Mp3 that are found stored in folders that were from a long time ago.

It is almost as like it is retrieving a picture of my drive from 8 months ago (minus the user files). Any idea why this has happened?

[GDH]

I have not idea. It is very odd.

Please run Recover My Files from www.recovermyfiles.com.

Run a "Complete File Search" of the drive letter for the default selected file types ONLY (dont add more file types to the search).

Please let us know the results.

Thank you.

[gynuine69]

Originally Posted by GDH

I have not idea. It is very odd.

Please run Recover My Files from www.recovermyfiles.com.

Run a "Complete File Search" of the drive letter for the default selected file types ONLY (dont add more file types to the search).

Please let us know the results.

Thank you.

will do. Seems very odd to me too.. checking the "created date" for the files everything dates back to march. the only thing dated in september are the user files i moved over... I thought i would try here before giving up. Ill run the scan and let you know the results. Thanks for the help!

[gynuine69]

so i ran the scan (on default file types only) and came across all of the pictures that i put over right before the install and other stuff that was recent. however none of my mp3s or video files werent shown. (assuming because i didnt add those file types) What do you suggest i do now?

[gynuine69]

Originally Posted by gynuine69

so i ran the scan (on default file types only) and came across all of the pictures that i put over right before the install and other stuff that was recent. however none of my mp3s or video files werent shown. (assuming because i didnt add those file types) What do you suggest i do now?

What exactly should i be looking for in the this scan? All the pictures and files that were moved over are being shown. Should I run another scan adding particular file types?

[GDH]

OK,

This time, please run a "Complete Format Recover" for the "physical drive" for the default selected file types only. This time in the results screen change to Folder View to look for your files.

Thank you.

[gynuine69]

Originally Posted by GDH

OK,

This time, please run a "Complete Format Recover" for the "physical drive" for the default selected file types only. This time in the results screen change to Folder View to look for your files.

Thank you.

So I woke up this morning, after the scan had been ran and I am still seeing the same results. I am completely confused. The scan brought up three partitions, a FAT32 (nothing in this partition), and two NTFS Partitions, Partition 1 and Partition 2.

What i found was that my results are showing a snapshot of my partitions from several months ago. In partition 1 and partition 2 primarily yield the same results however partition 1 has about 8 folders labeled [DIR000023432] (each number is different at the end for each folder) where acouple of them contain random data. Because Mp3s and Vid files were the most recent download i remember on my HD i continue to look for files that are familiar to me. I didnt find any thing. The only thing i find are directories that were updated some time ago.

I distinctly remember files shown in the results being moved and saved to different areas of my D partition then currently shown, however its displaying them before they were organized and put in thier proper location. (i.e. i would usually save an mp3 in my D:/mp3s folder, then later edit the name and move it into say D:mp3s/hip-hop the song was... It is showing a display of what my D:/mp3 folder looked like 4-5 months ago these songs are not edited and are not in thier genre folder and with no songs saved in there before thatt) It still isnt showing all of the MP3s and video files that have been dled recently? Sounds like chances are they have been deleted over. Any recommendations?

[gynuine69]

any suggestions GDH?