Question can I restore data from a crashed operating system?

[save my computer]

My custom built desktop PC of 9 years displayed a graphics card error popup window and then a minute later stopped displaying video completely and permanently, so I took it in to a tech repair shop.
I just called the repair shop yesterday to see what progress they were making, and they said that the reason the video output wasn't working was because the operating system had crashed and become corrupted. They also told me that they were in the middle of re-installing windows 10 to the hard drive. I immediately figured that would mean my hard drive data had been completely wiped, but the employee assured me that the hard drive was "empty" when he first looked at it.
I'm highly suspicious of that statement. From what a brief google search tells me, if an OS crashes or becomes corrupted, you can still restore the data. It makes no sense that the hard drive would be "empty", even if some or all of the data inside was corrupted or partially inaccessible. I never gave the employee permission to re-install the OS, wiping my hard drive in the process. He did it without my prior knowledge or approval.
Also, if the OS crashes, does that mean the computer wouldn't still run? Before I took my computer to the shop, I could still hear the computer running. Also, whenever I would press enter too many times after starting up my computer, the lights on my keyboard would go out. I think that correlates with the "time out" period when I enter the incorrect password too many times to login to windows. If the computer was still running albeit without video, would that disqualify an OS failure as the source of my problem?

 

[faalin]

Say the OS did crash, you would still be able to boot the computer, with video, and access the bios or even get to the point where it would start to load windows and ether crash or give a blue screen.

2nd, said OS is bad, you can still pull the drive and install it into another computer as a secondary drive and pull most if not all information off the drive. Being a secondary drive it does not need to access the OS portion for booting and will be able to read off it.


Can you give full system specs. Make and model of everything and how old is the PSU

 

[helpstar]

is the data on it important to you?
a corrupt OS might be sign of a hardware defect. could be the hard drive as well as memory or other things.

It can lead to a non responsive hard drive, which could be hard to recover data on it or as simple as just plugging it in as external hard drive to a different system and get the data from there

 

[save my computer]

Say the OS did crash, you would still be able to boot the computer, with video, and access the bios or even get to the point where it would start to load windows and ether crash or give a blue screen.

2nd, said OS is bad, you can still pull the drive and install it into another computer as a secondary drive and pull most if not all information off the drive. Being a secondary drive it does not need to access the OS portion for booting and will be able to read off it.


Can you give full system specs. Make and model of everything and how old is the PSU

I can't give full system specs at the moment. I'm going to have to look in my cloud storage, I know I saved a screenshot of my speccy results. I'll update you as soon as I can find it.
Not to rush you, but I have schedule constraints and I'm planning to go to the repair shop when it opens today to retrieve my computer. I'm assuming that they're going to want to charge me for re installing the OS, but I don't plan on paying since they wiped the data off my hard drive. Can you tell, please, is it almost certain that they've lied to me? Am I correct in assuming that they've been fraudulent? If something goes down, I don't want to be the bad guy if it turns out the employee was telling the truth the whole time.

 

[COLGeek]

Where is the computer now? Did you have a backup before the issue occurred?

 

[save my computer]

Where is the computer now? Did you have a backup before the issue occurred?

The computer is at the tech repair shop. I've yet to retrieve it. They are supposed to do a free check up, and it's only if they make a repair that they will charge me and withhold my computer until I pay. The problem is it sounds like they just damaged my computer way more than it was damaged in the first place. If I wanted a fresh OS at the expense of my data, I would have simply bought or built a new computer. It's a 9 year old PC anyway and the specs are terrible.
I don't have a backup of the data.

 

[save my computer]

is the data on it important to you?
a corrupt OS might be sign of a hardware defect. could be the hard drive as well as memory or other things.

It can lead to a non responsive hard drive, which could be hard to recover data on it or as simple as just plugging it in as external hard drive to a different system and get the data from there

The data is very important to me. It was the only part that was important to me. The hardware specs are so outdated that I would have bought a new computer if the data didn't matter.
I'm trying to figure out if the employee lied to me at any point, considering that he reinstalled the OS without my permission. You say that a non responsive hard drive could possibly have data that's very hard to recover. Does this fit the employee's explanation of the hard drive being "empty"? Again, I'm trying to figure out if he lied to me. I'm going to go into the shop when it opens and take back my computer without paying. If he intentionally damaged(destroyed my data) my computer and lied to me about it, I will be legally justified in seizing my own computer. I want to be certain that I'm in the right.

 

[COLGeek]

There are ways to address a corrupted OS that can vary, to some degree, based on the severity of the corruption. A "blank" drive suggests a possible hardware failure that a reinstallation of the OS may not fix.

At this point, I would assume your data is gone, especially if they installed Windows over what was stored on the PC.

 

[SkyNetRising]

the employee assured me that the hard drive was "empty" when he first looked at it.
I'm highly suspicious of that statement.

That is possible. Partition table got corrupted and drive appearing as empty.

There's another possibility. I've seen this on old failing SSDs. SSD disappears from system during normal operation.
After a reboot drive is detected again but appears fully wiped.
You can reinstall windows, but same thing happens again. SSD disappears from system and after reboot is wiped again.
It's a failing SSD and has to be replaced.

Also, if the OS crashes, does that mean the computer wouldn't still run?
Before I took my computer to the shop, I could still hear the computer running.

Fans spinning doesn't mean pc is operational.

 

[save my computer]

There are ways to address a corrupted OS that can vary, to some degree, based on the severity of the corruption. A "blank" drive suggests a possible hardware failure that a reinstallation of the OS may not fix.

At this point, I would assume your data is gone, especially if they installed Windows over what was stored on the PC.

I worded the title of this thread very poorly. Just so I'm prepared for when I go into the shop, is a blank or empty drive mutually exclusive to a corrupted OS?
If I go into the shop and they say that they successfully reinstalled the OS and everything is running smoothly now except that all of my data is gone, they're going to want to charge me the $150 we agreed on in the event that they successfully repair the computer. In this hypothetical scenario, I'm going to demand they give me my computer back without paying because they wiped my data without my prior approval.
The employee has already denied responsibility for the loss of my data, because the HD was supposedly, quote, "empty" when he first looked at it. However, he also diagnosed the problem as a corrupted OS, which, from what I understand, means the data could have been saved and there's no possible way the hard drive would have actually been "empty" or blank.

 

[KingLoki]

The correct procedure to follow would be to advise the customer on their findings before going ahead with any repairs, especially when it involves hard drives and most impotantly, the data on it. Even if the drive was dead they should of given you the opportunity to decide to proceed with a new install or pick up your system and investigate further to make an informed decision yourself. Losing important data with no backups makes the stomach churn. Good Luck with it. Cheers.

 

[save my computer]

That is possible. Partition table got corrupted and drive appearing as empty.

Does that mean the data would be irretrievable?

 

[KingLoki]

Just one question...so if the hard drive is dead, did they contact you to tell you that they are replacing the hard drive and the model and cost?

 

[COLGeek]

I worded the title of this thread very poorly. Just so I'm prepared for when I go into the shop, is a blank or empty drive mutually exclusive to a corrupted OS?

The straight answer is NO, not mutually exclusive. From what is presented here, it sounds like a hardware failure (SSD or HDD, whatever you have).

If the data was overwritten, it is very likely gone.

Was any offer made to swap the storage device BEFORE installing anything?

 

[helpstar]

you can try tools like PC INSPECTOR File Recovery if something is still there, a data lab could eventually recover something, but that´s very expensive, like $500 to $$$$$$
which SSD/Hdd is it? brand and model

 

[save my computer]

Was any offer made to swap the storage device BEFORE installing anything?

No. Ironically, the employee told me that he would have to order a new hard drive if the re-installation of the OS wasn't successful. I was at home and this was all relayed to me over a phone call by an employee who wasn't even in the shop at the time(he was driving). From what he told me, the data was already gone at that point and the employee in the store was already in the process of installing the new OS.

 

[save my computer]

Just one question...so if the hard drive is dead, did they contact you to tell you that they are replacing the hard drive and the model and cost?

No. They never said it was dead, at least they didn't use that word. They said the OS had "crashed" and the hard drive was "empty". They also never said that they were planning on replacing the hard drive, only that they were installing a new OS and that they would need to replace the hard drive only if that didn't work.

 

[COLGeek]

No. Ironically, the employee told me that he would have to order a new hard drive if the re-installation of the OS wasn't successful. I was at home and this was all relayed to me over a phone call by an employee who wasn't even in the shop at the time(he was driving). From what he told me, the data was already gone at that point and the employee in the store was already in the process of installing the new OS.

Re-installing Windows onto a likely defective storage device will lead to one outcome....the same problem you have now.

As @helpstar stated, there are some expensive data recovery services that "may" retrieve some info from the device. Overwriting with a new install of Windows will make even that recovery questionable.

Time to consider a new storage device and a backup solution going forward.

 

[KingLoki]

They should have suggested running data recovery software over it before overwriting the drive. The problem is that once the data is written over the top of old, then its usually non-recoverable. There could still be areas of the drive that can be recovered, but may be a slim one. Worth a try !

 

[save my computer]

Re-installing Windows onto a likely defective storage device will lead to one outcome....the same problem you have now.

The correct procedure to follow would be to advise the customer on their findings before going ahead with any repairs

Was any offer made to swap the storage device BEFORE installing anything?

Tell me if I'm wrong, but they screwed me over. I'm going to go in there and take my computer back and they aren't getting a penny.

 

[COLGeek]

Tell me if I'm wrong, but they screwed me over. I'm going to go in there and take my computer back and they aren't getting a penny.

We don't have the benefit of all the communications you had with the company, so no one here can say with certainty whether you are wrong, they are wrong, or some mix in the middle.

Good luck. If a reputable company, they will give you your system back gratis. If you, in their minds, gave the go ahead to do anything, then be prepared for pushback.

Regardless, it would seem you have a problem that has not been resolved, independent of your data problem.

 

[SkyNetRising]

That is possible. Partition table got corrupted and drive appearing as empty.

Does that mean the data would be irretrievable?

For a mechanical HDD, data recovery would be pretty easy (if there's no physical failure).
You just are not allowed to write anything to the drive before recovery is done.

For SSDs this is more complicated. Data could be unrecoverable.

 

[Misgar]

It's precisely this scenario of irretrieviably losing data that prompts me to warn a friend to keep multiple backups of all his treasured family photos. Instead they live on an old 500GB hard disk in a 2009 vintage Windows 7 PC (no internet).

I keep telling him to buy a few cheap USB memory sticks, a portable hard disk, etc. He insisted on returning a spindle of unused blank DVDs, because he "never used them". He has a working DVD writer, but the effort of backing up files is too time consuming.

Back to your problem. There is the vaguest of chances that some of your deleted files, not overwritten by the freshly installed operating system, might still be visible to software like Recuva. No promises, but it's worth a shot.

Unfortunately, the technician in the computer shop may have assumed you had backups of all your important files, whilst you assumed they wouldn't do anything to jeopardise your one and only copy of critical data. Unless you spoke directly to the technician repairing your machine, his colleague(s) might not have passed on any/all instructions from you.

As for interpretations of the word "empty" when describing a drive, different people have different understandings of the term, depending on how much they know about data storage.

Most (lay) persons think that deleting files means the the drive is "empty", which is true, from the point of view of storing new files. They don't realise the old (deleted) files are still there until overwritten by new files. Even re-formatting doesn't necessarily destroy all files. You have to over-write every sector with fresh data, to totally wipe a drive.

When a drive goes "bad" the safest option is to stop using it immediately and unplug it to avoid making matters worse. If it's the drive you boot up from, fitting a new drive and reinstalling WIndow is the best option. You are then left with the task of pulling data off the old drive. This may be simple, difficult, very expensive or impossible.

Sorry if you've learned the hard way, but computers are like any piece of hardware and can fail at any time. Keep backups in future.