Can files be recovered from wiped harddrive?

Monkey61

Hi,

I posted a few days ago about a broken laptop and got lots of helpful replies. My mother brought the computer down to her friend to fix it - he's not a proper expert, but he's he guy you go to when your computer breaks cos he knows a good bit.

Basically my main worry was that I had a lot of files on my hard drive that I hadn't backed up - because I'm an idiot. Mainly half a novel, film script and loads of other assorted writing that I would sell my soul to get back.

Computer man said that I had managed to wipe the computer completely - no files, no programs, no operating system even. I didn't run any weird secure delete programme or anything - I must have just pressed the wrong button at some point on the emergency recovery screen.

Is there any way that a proper expert could recover the files?

Donkey Kong

there are some data recovery tools that search for images, docs etc. it should be possible. the data should not have been lost not unless computer was re-installed. even then a data recovery program should capture the files.

might be helpful:
http://www.tech-pro.net/how-to-recover-deleted-files.html

Teamhar

If the operating system hasn't been reinstalled, you might have some luck with a program called R Studio. A company on Johnstown Road, Cabinteely called A1 Computers offer this service and have had great success with it, recovering files from a disk that had been formatted four times. If You're technically savvy, you could obtain a copy for yourself but I don't recommend it.

T.

delly

To somehow delete all files by a few button clicks is impossible. I have drives that I need blanking sometimes and its impossible to do while the computer is logged on to windows as they are protected files. I hope the computer man hasn't actually deleted your data and is blaming you instead.

Tallon

delly wrote: »

I hope the computer man hasn't actually deleted your data and is blaming you instead.

Id say this is the most likely case

Donkey Kong

delly wrote: »

To somehow delete all files by a few button clicks is impossible. I have drives that I need blanking sometimes and its impossible to do while the computer is logged on to windows as they are protected files. I hope the computer man hasn't actually deleted your data and is blaming you instead.

good chance computer man has reinstalled it. not a nice thing to do without making backup of files. have you noticed that your favourites are changed from your browser?

Teamhar

Yeah, didn't want to say as the poor guy can pretty much lose all hope. Sounds like a cowboy was let loose at it and in all probability its now running a cracked OS and missing a ton of drivers.

Donkey Kong

i'd be pretty stuffed if I lost half a novel. hope there is a hard copy knocking around.

fugazied

If the data is extremely important, use a data recovery service to retrieve it. VERY expensive , but they can get it back for you. You must immediately stop use the disk and get ready to send it away.

Data leaves a trace on magnetic hard drives and you can retrieve corrupt data and even data that's been written over. It just costs lot of money to get it back.

Monkey61

Thanks for help so far guys, I'm going to send it to the professionals next Monday when I get home.

Incidentally Fugazied, when you say "very expensive" - do you have a ballpark figure??

Amalgam

This works.

http://www.handyrecovery.com/

It works too well.. unless you've done multi-passes with a specific hard drive eraser (Dban, KillDisk etc..) your data will be there, just waiting.

Best to install it on a different PC and scan the affected drive through an external caddy or mounted as a slave drive on your main PC.

NullZer0

Teamhar wrote: »

If the operating system hasn't been reinstalled, you might have some luck with a program called R Studio. A company on Johnstown Road, Cabinteely called A1 Computers offer this service and have had great success with it, recovering files from a disk that had been formatted four times. If You're technically savvy, you could obtain a copy for yourself but I don't recommend it.

T.

+1

Amalgam

I forgot to say, it is non-destructive, though you'll need spare hard drive space elsewhere to dump the extracted data. Does partial recovery as well, with document files, this can make a difference.

mickoneill30

Monkey61 wrote: »

My mother brought the computer down to her friend to fix it - he's not a proper expert, but he's he guy you go to when your computer breaks cos he knows a good bit

I used to work on phone support. That's the one of the worst things we used to hear.

Customer: I've got problem X.
Me: No probs, have that fixed in 10 mins.
Customer: I brought it to a guy who knows about computers.
:eek:

It'd frequently turn a 10 minute call into a lot of hassle.

Anyway for the OP, if the drive hasn't been reinstalled and if it's working then there's a very good chance the files can be recovered.
The first thing to try is to plug the HDD into another computer and run a recovery tool. Getdatabackfat or getdatabackntfs are excellent. But if it's that important to you pay somebody to do it for you that knows what they're doing. At least "hopefully" you can be pretty sure they won't unintentionally make it worse..

If the drive is working it shouldn't be that expensive. It only gets really expensive if they have to recover hard drives by taking them apart.