Back up gone bad

[statesmanjeff]

While cleaning a mates lappy to an external HDD i think i have deleted a lot of vital files. Photos mainly but also mp3's.
I deleted them off the desktop then emptied the recycle bin.
I have defragged the drive once then relised what i have done......
How could i get them back, its mainly the photos of his deceased relo...

[SystemRat]

Not good

Firstly don’t boot the laptop or attempt to load anything new to it.

Download a copy of this: Hirens Boot CD

One of the programs on that disk is Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro

Attach a USB drive to the laptop and then boot Hirens Boot CD from the CD

You can try a normal recovery and latter a raw recovery and write the product of that recovery to the USB drive.

A normal recovery will give you the original file name if available where as the raw will create file01.jpg, file02.jpg etc so you will need to open them to see what they are.

Doing it this way changes nothing on the original drive and leaves the door open for other attempts or professional help from a data recovery firm.

Having defragged it is a problem but depending on the system large amounts of files such as the OS and Office for example loaded at the start of its life will most lightly not have been moved so the data area where the photos “might” still be there in part or whole if your very lucky.

A raw recovery will get back anything that can be got.

Good luck let me know if you can’t find a copy of the recovery CD.

The act of booting the laptop can damage your chances as swap and temp files are created in what is now empty space which reduces your chances of recovery.

Boot from the CD and recover to and external USB drive.

[Frannie]

its gone.

bad hierarchic structure to have folders whithin files.

you will not get anything back.

[crypto7]

Good luck.... I would like to know how you go as well, so please report back. I expect the defrag will have moved data over the top of the deleted files.

[statesmanjeff]

Thanks guys.
Very worried about this one.
I will update how i went.

[mandc]

From memory Best4less had had this problem on more than one occasion and I think he got good results with Getdataback

is another thread about data recovery after formating

[best4less]

mandc you have a good memory mate

Getdataback rocks LOL

I still use it quite a lot still LOL

[mandc]

mandc you have a good memory mate

Getdataback rocks LOL

I still use it quite a lot still LOL

It was so damn funny at the time (when you did it again..... FARK FARK etc.) it is permanently ingrained into my memory

[BillyGoat]

Lol at <bitchchecker>

[statesmanjeff]

Thank god for getdataback.

Got back pretty much everything.

Thank you all so much i thought i was screwed.