Weird... its back how it was out of the box!

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

I have a client who got to work this morning and her
computer was frozen. This was nothing unusual on their
screen. They rebooted and when it came up to the
desktop, they noticed a ton of icons that they had
deleted months earlier. They went into Windows Explorer
and all their programs were gone. So they called me.
Everything is actually how it was the day they purchased
it. For example, the computer came with a trial edition
of Office 2003. They had removed that and put Office
2000. Well, Office 2000 is gone and Office 2003 trial
edition is back on. The 3-month Norton AntiVirus lists
today as the begining of it's 3 month trial. All the
logs start today with no reference anything that happened
before the computer frooze.

I tried some 3rd party undelete program, didn't find much
of anything, none of which was their stuff, just some
system config files, such as sysprep.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Michael H. Cox
mcox@*SPAM*lvgeeks.com

remove *SPAM* if ya wanna e-mail me!

Any guesses?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

Somebody put the System Restore CD-ROM disk in
the machine and rebooted the machine with that CD
in place. The machine dutifully did a factory reinstall
as per the CD's capability.


Bill


Michael H. Cox wrote:
> I have a client who got to work this morning and her
> computer was frozen. This was nothing unusual on their
> screen. They rebooted and when it came up to the
> desktop, they noticed a ton of icons that they had
> deleted months earlier. They went into Windows Explorer
> and all their programs were gone. So they called me.
> Everything is actually how it was the day they purchased
> it. For example, the computer came with a trial edition
> of Office 2003. They had removed that and put Office
> 2000. Well, Office 2000 is gone and Office 2003 trial
> edition is back on. The 3-month Norton AntiVirus lists
> today as the begining of it's 3 month trial. All the
> logs start today with no reference anything that happened
> before the computer frooze.
>
> I tried some 3rd party undelete program, didn't find much
> of anything, none of which was their stuff, just some
> system config files, such as sysprep.
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Michael H. Cox
> mcox@*SPAM*lvgeeks.com
>
> remove *SPAM* if ya wanna e-mail me!
>
> Any guesses?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

Either that or they booted off the Restore partition if this exists. It
is possible to basically restore an image to the drive from another
partition or CD. If the client accidently booted off either of these,
it will have erased all data and put the original factory image on the
drive. Unfortunately, there really is no way to undo this, but you can
try data recovery programs and see if they can pull anything back up.
Otherwise, everything will have to be redone 🙁

----
Nathan McNulty

Bill Drake wrote:
> Somebody put the System Restore CD-ROM disk in
> the machine and rebooted the machine with that CD
> in place. The machine dutifully did a factory reinstall
> as per the CD's capability.
>
>
> Bill
>
>
> Michael H. Cox wrote:
>
>>I have a client who got to work this morning and her
>>computer was frozen. This was nothing unusual on their
>>screen. They rebooted and when it came up to the
>>desktop, they noticed a ton of icons that they had
>>deleted months earlier. They went into Windows Explorer
>>and all their programs were gone. So they called me.
>>Everything is actually how it was the day they purchased
>>it. For example, the computer came with a trial edition
>>of Office 2003. They had removed that and put Office
>>2000. Well, Office 2000 is gone and Office 2003 trial
>>edition is back on. The 3-month Norton AntiVirus lists
>>today as the begining of it's 3 month trial. All the
>>logs start today with no reference anything that happened
>>before the computer frooze.
>>
>>I tried some 3rd party undelete program, didn't find much
>>of anything, none of which was their stuff, just some
>>system config files, such as sysprep.
>>
>>Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>
>>Michael H. Cox
>>mcox@*SPAM*lvgeeks.com
>>
>>remove *SPAM* if ya wanna e-mail me!
>>
>>Any guesses?
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

I've never seen any explanation for this except: someone ran the
manufacturers bundled recovery s/w.

Tell your client not to do it again unless they're sure they know what
they're up to!!

"Michael H. Cox" wrote:

> I have a client who got to work this morning and her
> computer was frozen. This was nothing unusual on their
> screen. They rebooted and when it came up to the
> desktop, they noticed a ton of icons that they had
> deleted months earlier. They went into Windows Explorer
> and all their programs were gone. So they called me.
> Everything is actually how it was the day they purchased
> it. For example, the computer came with a trial edition
> of Office 2003. They had removed that and put Office
> 2000. Well, Office 2000 is gone and Office 2003 trial
> edition is back on. The 3-month Norton AntiVirus lists
> today as the begining of it's 3 month trial. All the
> logs start today with no reference anything that happened
> before the computer frooze.
>
> I tried some 3rd party undelete program, didn't find much
> of anything, none of which was their stuff, just some
> system config files, such as sysprep.
>
> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Michael H. Cox
> mcox@*SPAM*lvgeeks.com
>
> remove *SPAM* if ya wanna e-mail me!
>
> Any guesses?
>