Lost files - win XP
 

Hey all, major prob this week at work. At the studio I work at one of our editors managed to delete a folder with a photo shoot in while making backups. (ie they thought they had backed it up & deleted it - they hadn't) now its gone and the recycle bin has been emptied. Can this be retrieved do you think, if so how? I don't mind paying / buying software. Already have rescue software for memory cards but it doesn't seem to be working well on the hard drive. Any help much appreciated!

From what I understrand there are specialist it services specialised in this type of retrieval. I think the critical point is to do no further work so that the lost data is not overwritten.

First step, backup everything you can.

Second step, stick a "recovery disk" in floppy drive. Fdisk the hard drive into two partitions. Partition 1 will be "C" drive, partition 2 will be "D" drive. Always save your data on the "D" drive, this way when you have problems you can simply format the "C" drive and start over again, with your data saved.

Also, once a week (or sooner) save your data on a CD or other format. I use another computer and do a mirror image on a second computer. Chances are very low that both will not die at once.

Third step, install Windows 2000 on the computer. Your problems will be a lot fewer from there on out.

That said, Norton used to have some utilities that would find files that were deleted. I used it several times with some success. Problem is that you do not have it installed on the computer now you would have to install it, and doing so could overwrite the files you want to recover, making it impossible.

Sorry I cannot help more but XP is a POS OS from my viewpoint. Its so full of security holes that we refuse to use it until MS fixes it.

JoeA

thanks for your help chaps, as of tonight have partitioned 6 pc's will do others when this prob is fixed. Always used 98se or Win 2000 but finally had to upgrade this year to XP a fair few probs with crashing etc but not as bad as I expected. This was going to happen sooner or later due to the no. of images that we produce each week but will change the system soon.