File Recovery - Format

[Tesla]

Hi guys,

I have a customer who ran the recovery CD's that came with her Compaq desktop PC.

She didn't realise they format the drive and do a clean install.

I am hoping to retrieve some of the photos for her. Problem is some software has been reinstalled and a different tech has already looked at the machine so unsure what fragments will be left, if anything.

Which software do you recommend for this task?

Thanks,

Chris

 

[Tesla]

I tried Recuva but it doesn't seem to work past a drive format.

Will look into the other software.

 

[iisjman07]

You could try using TestDisk to recover the lost partition - it might work. I don't think many (if any) free applications can do a format recovery.

 

[Tesla]

The recovery CD's reformat the drive and reinstall XP so there is not a lost partition as such.

It doesn't need to be free software, can purchase anything necessary.

 

[seedubya]

In this scenario, GDB is your best firstline bet. It will search for both current and previous partitions and has specific settings for searching for files after a format. The trial will show you and allow preview of any recoverable files. http://www.runtime.org/

 

[NickCat11]

+1 for Get Data Back. I believe on another recent thread a member just had good success with this when the computer had been reformatted with the OS reinstalled. Good Luck!

 

[Kenhelms]

getdataback might work for it. if it doesnt you can use on-track for raw recovery. or r-studio as well.

 

[Tesla]

Ontrack kept crashing so tried out this getdataback.

The scan took a couple of hours and I can see the old files but cannot open anything succesfully (using the full version of GDB).

I copied some images to USB drive and the jpg's are corrupt as cannot be opened.

Any further ideas?

 

[NYJimbo]

I think at this point you are looking at file descriptors and chunks of files but not much else. After a reformat, reload of OS, drivers, programs, etc, you really dont have much hope. Way too much has been overwritten. You can keep digging but as you can see you are likely just going to pick up fragments of images.

 

[NickCat11]

Unfortunately I don't think things are looking to good. At this point it I would probably stop and think about using a professional recovery service if the information is that valuable to her. Even thats not a guarantee...

 

[NickCat11]

you're to quick nyjimbo!

 

[TechGuy71]

I just got one in a couple days ago where they did the same thing, except off the recovery partition.. They were mostly concerned with their pictures, and I recovered over 3,000 pictures with testdisk-6.10 the only problem was it doesn't keep the folder structure and with 300k files being recovered, wading through the porn (temporary internet files type stuff) to find what they needed was a chore.

 

[Tesla]

After a bit more playing I mounted a different probable file system within the program.

It looked wrong as the starting sector was not 0.

However, it has worked and I have recovered working images!

Perhaps the recovery sector is at 0 and this effects the results in a way I don't currently understand.

Thanks for the help guys, appreciated.

 

[NYJimbo]

After a bit more playing I mounted a different probable file system within the program.

It looked wrong as the starting sector was not 0.

However, it has worked and I have recovered working images!

Perhaps the recovery sector is at 0 and this effects the results in a way I don't currently understand.

Thanks for the help guys, appreciated.

Well, if you mount the wrong file system..........

 

[Tesla]

Well, if you mount the wrong file system..........

The software presents a list of file systems, many in the list read identical with the same attributes.

The Compaq recovery software (AFAIK) formats the existing partition, not delete it and create a new one so I would assume the start sector of the current partition and the previous I want to recover data from the same. But the starting sector is different.

Selecting either partition for recovery presents me with the directory structure that existed on the computer before reinstall. But only one actually displays data.

When I have a spare hour I'll educate myself some more about it.

 

[Galdorf]

O&O media recovery if you want just pictures does a good job.
I use it VERY easy to use does raw recovery on pics.

http://www.oo-software.com/home/en/products/oomediarecovery/

If you set it to jpg exif you can weed out internet cache pics.