Weird Hard Drive Issue

[BuddyRepperton]

About a week ago, my dad was running an HP computer with Vista. He went to start it up and the fans ran but otherwise was pretty much dead. Obviously it was motherboard failure.

So he went to Best Buy and bought a new computer. To save time he had The Geek Squad take the hard drive from the broken HP and do a file transfer. They were able to easily get all the files from the hard drive, however the files were all the 2008 versions. All of these files have been updated monthly since 2008.

There was no system restore done at any point in time either.

What could possibly make all of these files on the hard drive revert back to their 2008 versions? We're talking about hundreds of Pagemaker files.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the TH Community, @BuddyRepperton!

I suspect that those files from 2008 were there all along. If they were replaced by other newer versions over the course of time, then they should have been lost. You mentioned that the files were updated monthly, but what program/software has your dad used since then and does he have a backup of the files on an off-site (external drive) location? Keep in mind that most backup programs usually back the files to another location and not on the same system drive. Windows also has the tendency to save older versions of itself together with the files, which takes up quite the space as well, so this could also explain why you were able to retrieve those 2008 files. However, I'm not sure what kind of software the Geek Squad used and if they were able to see any other files on the HDD. Maybe you should take the HDD back to them and ask them to check the drive's contents again.

SuperSoph_WD

 

[BuddyRepperton]

Welcome to the TH Community, @BuddyRepperton!

I suspect that those files from 2008 were there all along. If they were replaced by other newer versions over the course of time, then they should have been lost. You mentioned that the files were updated monthly, but what program/software has your dad used since then and does he have a backup of the files on an off-site (external drive) location? Keep in mind that most backup programs usually back the files to another location and not on the same system drive. Windows also has the tendency to save older versions of itself together with the files, which takes up quite the space as well, so this could also explain why you were able to retrieve those 2008 files. However, I'm not sure what kind of software the Geek Squad used and if they were able to see any other files on the HDD. Maybe you should take the HDD back to them and ask them to check the drive's contents again.

SuperSoph_WD

 

[BuddyRepperton]

The files in question are Adobe Pagemaker 7.0 files. We update and change them monthly as they are files for a monthly newsletter. They were even updated as recently as last month. My dad didn't back them up to an external drive as he should have, he's a bit older and didn't realize how easily something could go wrong.

But still, the 2016 version of those files should be there. I suspect that the guy at Geek Squad didn't totally know what he was doing. The first time he tried to do it, he totally missed all those files as they needed to be marked unhidden. Then on the second attempt, he gets the 2008 versions. He seemed very nervous and was talking very fast when we called him. I just really wonder if those 2016 versions of the files are still on there and retrievable.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there again, @BuddyRepperton!

I'd strongly recommend not tampering with the HDD further by yourself, but instead, taking it to another data recovery service and check if the tech guys there would be able to retrieve the correct versions of your Adobe Pagemaker 7.0 files. It sounds like something went wrong when this guy tried to recover the files, judging by the description of the situation.

Hope you get to the bottom of this! Keeping my fingers crossed for a successful data recovery!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[BuddyRepperton]

Hey there again, @BuddyRepperton!

I'd strongly recommend not tampering with the HDD further by yourself, but instead, taking it to another data recovery service and check if the tech guys there would be able to retrieve the correct versions of your Adobe Pagemaker 7.0 files. It sounds like something went wrong when this guy tried to recover the files, judging by the description of the situation.

Hope you get to the bottom of this! Keeping my fingers crossed for a successful data recovery!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[BuddyRepperton]

Problem solved. I was able to get a used motherboard on Ebay for one dollar + S & H. Got the computer running again and gained access to all of my files. They were exactly where they should be and they were the 2016 versions. No files were corrupted and the hard drive was fine.

Moral of the story is don't trust The Geek Squad. They are not always as knowledgeable as they claim to be and will lie to cover it up.

Either way, thanks for the responses.