Re: Added HDD, lost all back-up files on WIN XP

From: Rick \ (rick@mvps.org)
Date: 03/16/03 

From: "Rick \"Nutcase\" Rogers" <rick@mvps.org>
Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 10:03:05 -0500

Hi,

Ok, so can you actually see the files on the NTFS drive, and they just come back as not accessible?

Or is it that the retoration wiped out the files?

For the former, if the files were not encrypted, you can take ownership of them to regain them, see:

HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP [Q308421]
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

If they were encrypted, you would need an encryption certificate or recovery agent from the original installation. Without them, the data is permanently lost to you. There are no back doors (wouldn't be very good encryption if there were now would it?).

If it was the latter, try one of the many file recovery programs out there. If it was not all overwritten, you may have some luck using them. You can find one here:
http://hccweb1.bai.ne.jp/~hcj58401/

More extensive data recovery tools are available as well, but they can get very costly very quickly.

Oh, and next time, backup your critical data to removable media or remove the drive before doing anything like that. 

-- 
Best of Luck,
Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x - http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone - www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
Win98 Help - www.rickrogers.org
Please reply only to newsgroup...
"sloebie" <thee_dove@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:#qlxa366CHA.1512@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> I had a main drive (MD) and on my second drive(SS), partitioned half to
> fat32 and half to NTFS.  Well, I wanted to make sure I could reformat the
> original drive, for a "sub-virus" per se, that was giving remote access to
> my computer away w/o connections.  Anyway, So, I decided to practice on an
> extra drive I had.  I disconnected the main drive, added an unused drive and
> stuck the restore cd's in to "format" that drive.  It didn't like the drive
> (pin wrong) so it deleted my back-up drive utterly and restored the WINXP on
> that drive!!!!
> 
> Two years of crucial, legal data-gone.  When I had win95, I could get into
> the dump files and at least extract info out of it, though hardly easy work,
> but I can't find the way to access the deleted files from my back-up drive.
> I read into it and all I get is this bogus info that because I had the drive
> partitioned into half fat/NTFS, I have lost all options of regaining that
> data.
> 
> Can anyone tell me that this IS NOT TRUE!!!  Are there computer geek stores
> that can retrieve it?  Can I?  Is there a program out there that can?  I
> NEED this info for litigations.
> 
> Thank you,
> slobie
> 
>

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