marine wife needs to recover pics and docs of Marine killed in Iraq.. help,desperate!

[marinewife]

Looking for GHD... he seems to know the answers.. but all advice is appreciated.

I was trying to hook up a mp3 player for my husband for father's day. It requested my Windows ME disk... disk number 2... i inserted it and followed the screen directions and re-formatted my hard drive...blue screen with no documents and my desktop is gone... just a basic one.

My husband's best friend was killed in Iraq last april. He was over there too, so I attended the memorials/services. The widow is my dear friend and wanted me to take pics so her four kids could understand the death better when they became *****s. So, 100's of pics and the last letters that were sent to my husband from the Marine are gone.... PLEASE help me. I've said two hail mary's and two our fathers to get me out of this one.

We're a military family, so i can't afford to download a program that will not help me. Will this software help me?

To make things worse, my husband gets off of ship tomorrow and I have to tell him this news on father's day. I feel like I have failed my friend and their kids. Please help me recover these docs and pics. And to pour salt in the wounds. I lost word docs that had SOP's for my husband's Marines... he worked months on them.

GDH... if you're out there, please respond ASAP, I need your opinion... i've read your threads and you seem to be honest and give the right advice. help, .

[GDH]

Hi, sorry for the delay in responding to you. We will do everything we can to get the photos and documents back.

I understand that you have formatted your hard drive and now you have a new desktop but cannot locate your data.

The most important thing to remember is that deleted or lost data will stay on the disk up until it is overwritten by other data. So the best thing to do is to use the disk as little as possible until the recovery can be attempted.

In a case like yours it is worth me explaining the different installation options that you have...

If you have another computer and the necessary skills it is an option to remove the hard disk from the problem computer and connect it to anther computer as the secondary drive. This reduces the chance that you, or the Windows Operating System will write data to the drive and ******ially overwrite and destroy important data.

If you cannot do this, but have access to a secondary computer with a CD burner you can download the latest version of Recover My Files on the second computer, install it, and then burning the contents of the C:/program files/ Recover My Files folder to a CD. Then you can take the CD to the problem computer and run the program from CD.

If you dont have access to a second computer you can download and install the program directly to the problem system. Please note that the program is about 7mb in size when installed, so you will be overwriting this amount of deleted space and there is a small possibility that it could have contained something important.

The good news is that from what you have described I think that you should get all your data back.

The best test to do initially is to run a "Complete File Search". In the drive selection window select the 'physical drive' - if you only have one physical hard drive in your computer it should display in the drive selection wizard screen as "Physica Drive 0". By selecting the physical drive it ignores all partitions on the drive (eg. "C:") and just treats the drive as one big chunk of raw data. Run this search and select specific file types that you have lost - just select a few like .doc or .jpeg. The program will show you all files, deleted or not (because it is searching the big chunk of data). The reason I wanted to run this test is to make sure you dont have any strange things happening with hidden user profiles etc. If you let this search run for a while you should be able to find some of the lost data and get your confidence up. Note that you will not have the original file names in this search.

The best search to bring back your data will a "Complete Format Recover". Search the "Logical" drive, eg. drive "C:". Use only the default selected file types and let the search run to the very end.

Please let me know how you get on.

[marinewife]

Okay, I'm back on line trying to un-do my boo boo. I'm not really sure of what damage I did and I'm kind of confused on your reply. Would you be so kind to answer some questions again?

I may have used the wrong words... I accidentally re-installed windows. Can Ire-store my hard drive to where it was before? I am desperately seeking that. so, when I say "re-formatted my hard drive, is that right?" Maybe my verbage is in-correct.

You wrote: "The most important thing to remember is that deleted or lost data will stay on the disk up until it is overwritten by other data. So the best thing to do is to use the disk as little as possible until the recovery can be attempted." my question is... data will stay on what disk? The Windows ME disk that I stuck in?

You wrote: "If you have another computer and the necessary skills it is an option to remove the hard disk from the problem computer and connect it to anther computer as the secondary drive. This reduces the chance that you, or the Windows Operating System will write data to the drive and ******ially overwrite and destroy important data." My question is... what hard disk?

You wrote: "If you cannot do this, but have access to a secondary computer with a CD burner you can download the latest version of Recover My Files on the second computer, install it, and then burning the contents of the C:/program files/ Recover My Files folder to a CD. Then you can take the CD to the problem computer and run the program from CD." I believe that I can do this. I have a second computer which is networked with my messed up computer. I do have a cd burner with internet. Download the lastest version of recover my files... to my hard drive? Okay, then burn the program to a cd and then run the program frm the cd?

On your suggestion do a complete file search... I'm confused... "in the drive selection window"? when I click start, run open with (in drop down box, there's nothing there, no drives. I click browse and the A, C,D, E F are filed under my computer. I'm not sure how to get to a "complete file search" like you suggested. Where is the drive selection window?

Okay, I kind of understand what you are stating, but I need more basic directions... but I really do appreciate this. You have NO idea... thanks sooooooooooooo very much for your time and patience.

karen

[GDH]

I may have used the wrong words... I accidentally re-installed windows. Can Ire-store my hard drive to where it was before? I am desperately seeking that. so, when I say "re-formatted my hard drive, is that right?" Maybe my verbage is in-correct.

If you have formatted the drive then reinstalled Windows it is not possible to return your computer to its pre-existing state. The best you can hope for is to recover the lost documents and photos.

You wrote: "The most important thing to remember is that deleted or lost data will stay on the disk up until it is overwritten by other data. So the best thing to do is to use the disk as little as possible until the recovery can be attempted." my question is... data will stay on what disk? The Windows ME disk that I stuck in?

No, not the Windows ME disk. The hard disk in your computer where all your information is stored (i.e. Windows and your files).

You wrote: "If you have another computer and the necessary skills it is an option to remove the hard disk from the problem computer and connect it to anther computer as the secondary drive. This reduces the chance that you, or the Windows Operating System will write data to the drive and ******ially overwrite and destroy important data." My question is... what hard disk?

You wrote: "If you cannot do this, but have access to a secondary computer with a CD burner you can download the latest version of Recover My Files on the second computer, install it, and then burning the contents of the C:/program files/ Recover My Files folder to a CD. Then you can take the CD to the problem computer and run the program from CD." I believe that I can do this. I have a second computer which is networked with my messed up computer. I do have a cd burner with internet. Download the lastest version of recover my files... to my hard drive? Okay, then burn the program to a cd and then run the program frm the cd?

You need to install the program on the other computer first. Then write the contents of the C:\program files\Recover My Files folder to a CD. To run the program from CD you need to run the file called "RecoverMyFiles.exe".

On your suggestion do a complete file search... I'm confused... "in the drive selection window"? when I click start, run open with (in drop down box, there's nothing there, no drives. I click browse and the A, C,D, E F are filed under my computer. I'm not sure how to get to a "complete file search" like you suggested. Where is the drive selection window?

Once you have Recover My Files running the first window you see will be a wizard screen that give you a choice of 4 types of search. Pick "Complete File Search".