Re: deleted part of my girlfriend thesis HELP

From: Mark Gibson (gibson_at_bluestem.prairienet.org)
Date: 10/23/04 

Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 11:59:17 +0000 (UTC)

Jim Watt <jimwatt@aol.no_way> wrote:
>On Fri, 22 Oct 2004 15:35:41 +0200, "Henning Dalgaard"
><dalle@SPAMstofanet.dk> wrote:

>>I have a laptop with 2 partitions and after I ran Compaqs system recovery to
>>reinstall WinXP I saw that it deleted my e-drive where my documents where.
>>Is it possible to recover the docs even after a format, and even after I
>>have made a new partition (thought I had backup so I made a new partition
>>with partition magic, but there is one important excelfile that I am
>>missing).
>>Since I am using a laptop, I dont have the option of taking the drive out
>>and putting it in another pc. I have a usb drive that I can connect to my
>>laptop though.
>>Help greatly appreciated!

>The drive will come out, and really to work on it should - however it
>sounds like you are struggling and you really need to find someone
>more experienced in this sort of work.
>--
>Jim Watt
>http://www.gibnet.com

I do know more than most about low level computer coding and maintenance
procedures. Recovering data from a drive (or partition) that has been
formatted in some way is non-trivial. The NSA, FBI, IBM, and a select few
smaller organizations can do it. It is not inexpensive.

What you have to do, assuming the data sectors have been written over
(not a sure thing -- those quick format progs don't bother with fussing
with the actual data, just the directory entries that point to it, so the
data can be recovered if the drive has not been used much since the
"disaster") is worry about reading "bleed over" data -- stuff that sorta
leaks onto the edges of tracks over time and may be recoverable with
some nice gear; the kind you need a lab with a good clean room to provide.

Really, if you want to recover data the has been formatted over using
a thorough formatting program, you better have some money to spend.
If the issue is restoring a few pointers to locations on a drive/partition
that have not been over written by later use, the task becomes much easier.

Whatever you do, do not keep using that drive for any procedures that
write new data, until you decide if it is worth paying to recover the lost
data. Once things have been written over by new data, they are very hard
to recover. Making a very good backup of some sort is almost a given first
step. That way, if your recovery procedures fail, you can try again using
the backed up info, or what is left of it.

I'd be happy to send you info on data recovery firms that I've heard of
or that can be found with a bit of Googling. Email me if you
are interested. There will be no charge...I have a good feeling for how
much pain a lost thesis can cause a person, even though I've never had
that problem.

Best regards,
and very good luck,
Mark Gibson

-- No one goes there nowadays, it's too crowded."
          -- Yogi Berra

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