[SOLVED] Help recover wiped data?

[aarono123]

I need help getting some files back after I reinstalled Windows 7. Basically, I detect a hard drive failure, because my computer a week ago stopped booting into Windows and I wasn't able to get to it. I decided to buy the boot disk which worked but I had to reinstall windows. I tried choosing "Upgrade" on the selection to install it but the prompt wouldn't let me choose it. It said it was using the installation media disk and wanted me to take it out and reboot the computer so windows will pop up. Sure enough it didn't. I tried using "Repair your computer" and no luck it detected a problem but couldn't fix it. After a couple hours before deciding to go "Custom" route, I decide to do so. Now im in windows successfully but my files and everything is gone. Right now I am using Recuva to see if it can search the hard drive. If anyone has any other methods of data recovery, that would be amazing. Thank you.

 

[rgd1101]

and what custom did you do? delete everything?


Where were the files at? user folder? windows folder?
search for old windows folder?

 

[DSzymborski]

Software is the way to do this and Recuva is one of the better ones. Unfortunately, the fact that you didn't simply run a format but in fact installed everything on top of the old stuff reduces your chances of recovering your files from moderate to slim. And every second you run this PC with this hard drive further reduces your chances from slim to none.

If you need these files, you need to stop using this hard drive right now, put it in an enclosure, and run Recuva off a second PC or this PC with Windows installed on a different hard drive.

Unfortunately, you've discovered one of the basic truths about backing up files: having only one copy of your important files is, sooner or later, identical to having zero copies of your important files. Hopefully this lesson isn't too hard, but I hope you learn it in the future.

 

[USAFRet]

Custom:
Deleted all previous, and wrote over that drive space.

Recuva
TestDisk
Autopsy

And you WILL need some other physical drive to recover to.

The probability of getting 100% of your previous files back is 0.
You may get some, or some fragments. Basically useless.

My sig pic is relevant here.

 

[aarono123]

Software is the way to do this and Recuva is one of the better ones. Unfortunately, the fact that you didn't simply run a format but in fact installed everything on top of the old stuff reduces your chances of recovering your files from moderate to slim. And every second you run this PC with this hard drive further reduces your chances from slim to none.

If you need these files, you need to stop using this hard drive right now, put it in an enclosure, and run Recuva off a second PC or this PC with Windows installed on a different hard drive.

Unfortunately, you've discovered one of the basic truths about backing up files: having only one copy of your important files is, sooner or later, identical to having zero copies of your important files. Hopefully this lesson isn't too hard, but I hope you learn it in the future.

The only option the installer gave me on custom was the hard drive itself. There were two other drives but I couldn’t reinstall on those. I was very hesitant to reinstall on the hard drive itself. Right now it’s finding files. About 7% through. What are some steps you recommend I take after?

 

[DSzymborski]

The only option the installer gave me on custom was the hard drive itself. There were two other drives but I couldn’t reinstall on those. I was very hesitant to reinstall on the hard drive itself. Right now it’s finding files. About 7% through. What are some steps you recommend I take after?

I said not to reinstall on the hard drive itself. In fact, the opposite; you shouldn't even be running Windows on this hard drive. It needs to be out and into an enclosure and Recuva trying to recover it as an external hard drive *now. Again, every second you're running Windows on this hard drive, you're losing more of what's left of your data.

The steps afterwards are limited: the next step is deciding if it's worth $1000 (or more) for a good data recovery lab to recover. The step after that is moving on without your data.