Undoing a System Recovery

[judierudie]

Can anybody help? My Compaq PC was playing up and i couldnt remember how to solve it so i foolishly pressed F10 and did a System Recovery instead of a System restore. I have now lost all my files including precious baby pics. Can i ever get these back. Any help gratefully received.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Hi Judie

 

Welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help

 

If you did a full system recovery which sets the pc back to factory condition then it is very doubtful that any of your files remain.

 

You could try this Data Recovery Software and see if that helps although it does cost.

[judierudie]

Thanks, not sure whether it was a full one or not. Mind you how do people get access to stuff that paedophiles and the like delete? I didnt think you could get rid of everything forever.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Thanks, not sure whether it was a full one or not.

Can you explain what you mean please, did you do a destructive or non destructive system recovery?

 

The police and forensic labs use sophisticated and very expensive software when retrieving files of that nature Judie.

[judierudie]

Im pretty computer clueless and i thought i was doing a system retrieval. I pressed F10 as the PC booted up and took it from there. Im at work now so not sure whther it was destructive or not.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Can you remember seeing any messages saying some thing along the lines of "Do you wish to continue doing a system recovery?"

 

Note this address for when you get home.

 

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&cc=us&docname=bph07144#N363

 

Look here also.

 

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&docname=bph07145

[judierudie]

Hi i didnt click advanced so i guess i just did a normal recovery. Does that make things easier?

I know i had to go through the Microsoft procedure again.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

I have not thoroughly read those links but I will when i get a moment, I suggest you do the same when you get home.

All may still be salvageable.

[judierudie]

Thanks for your help its appreciated.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Your welcome Judie and get back to us please if you cannot resolve this.

[judierudie]

Thanks for all your help. As PC came on at Compaq screen i bashed away at F8. Then put PC in Safe mode and went from there. Just got to find all my drivers now!

[Seth]

Given the non-destructive recovery, you can find the pictures by going to Start>Search, and choosing Pictures. Leave the file name blank a under the Advanced options, make sure Search for hidden files...is checked.

 

Once you find the pictures and the folder that they are in, you can right click on the C drive, choose Explore, and navigate to that folder. Or, right click on a found picture and choose "Open containing folder". Then, copy and paste those pictures in your My Pictures folder.

 

Backup those pictures ASAP.

[AdvancedSetup]

If you're unable to locate the pictures Judie then you need to stop using the computer as that will make it more difficult to recover your pictures and documents.

 

Very unlikely that you will loose the data, but you have to follow specific instructions for the recovery. Which will include needing access to another PC to assist in proper recovery.

 

Hopefully the method Seth described will be sufficient. If so that's great news, just remember that you need to backup all documents and pictures to another hard drive or burn them to a CD or DVD

 

Cheers

[judierudie]

Thanks for all your help guys, photos now recovered and will be saved to USB stick asap!

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Good to hear Judie.

I'd also consider other backup media too for example you could burn the pics to cdrom etc.

[judierudie]

Hi Im still getting error message "Cant get registry value key=software/globespanVirat/Adsl value = driver type" . Can i sort this or will i have to install a different modem?

Also when ive gone into "Change/Remove Files" not all the files on my PC are there , why is this and is there an alternative way to get rid of them? Cheers Jude

[RandyL]

Judie if this is a new problem or unrelated to the original post of data recovery you should post it as a new topic.

Thanks;

RandyL

[AdvancedSetup]

I answered that error message in your other post Judie

 

http://extremetechsupport.com/forum/t1587-Error-message

 

Please that and let us know, but you should reply in that other topic.

 

Thanks

[RandyL]

Thanks AS.

RandyL

[alfa155]

I too did a full system recovery and have lost photos that were very important to me for work, suppose there is no way of finding them again i suppose ?

 

Cheers

alfa155

[judierudie]

Hi Alfa,

If you,ve got a Compaq then you can reverse a System Recovery if it wasnt a "Destructive" one. Press F8 when the Compaq screen appears and go from there.