Proof...

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

Try to perform some data recovery on it, plug it into a working computer and the data might still be there. Unless the HD does not spin up anymore...

YUP! Great idea... I work in computers with Geek Squad... and I didnt think of that! Do you have a Best Buy where your at?? Geek Squad will recover your files for $99.00, AND included in that price is a 250GB external harddrive (valued at $70.00) so you never lose your files agian!

Really? Even after I had to do a FULL System restore? They say you can't get anything back after you do that. That would be great. I have several Best Buys around.

Try to perform some data recovery on it, plug it into a working computer and the data might still be there. Unless the HD does not spin up anymore...

Hmm... how do I do this?

It is working now, I am on it. But I had to do a full system restore and I lost everything...

If you did a full system restore on the same hard drive, then you've likely lost everything that was there before. It's possible you might be able to recover some of the old data from unallocated sectors, but you'd have to shut off the computer now and remove the hard drive. The drive could then be analyzed for recoverable file data on another system. You cannot do the analysis with the drive installed in your computer because your computer is using the drive as the SYSTEM drive, and is continuously writing new data to it. This is complicated, and involves looking for data in unallocated sectors, and using heuristics to guess how the sectors were linked into files, since the original file allocation tables and directory structure were overwritten when you restored the system. I don't know if the fine folks in the Geek Squad are equipped to do this, but it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Your chances of recovering any usable data depends on the amount of the previous data that got clobbered by the restore.

This would have been vastly less complicated if you'd tried to recover the data BEFORE doing the system restore. As long as the hard drive hadn't crashed, you could have taken the drive down to Best Buy and had it backed up on an external USB drive. Then you'd could safely clobber the drive by restoring the system, but you'd still have all of your files on the external drive.

[Teffah 5]

Try to perform some data recovery on it, plug it into a working computer and the data might still be there. Unless the HD does not spin up anymore...

YUP! Great idea... I work in computers with Geek Squad... and I didnt think of that! Do you have a Best Buy where your at?? Geek Squad will recover your files for $99.00, AND included in that price is a 250GB external harddrive (valued at $70.00) so you never lose your files agian!

Really? Even after I had to do a FULL System restore? They say you can't get anything back after you do that. That would be great. I have several Best Buys around.

Try to perform some data recovery on it, plug it into a working computer and the data might still be there. Unless the HD does not spin up anymore...

Hmm... how do I do this?

It is working now, I am on it. But I had to do a full system restore and I lost everything...

If you did a full system restore on the same hard drive, then you've likely lost everything that was there before. It's possible you might be able to recover some of the old data from unallocated sectors, but you'd have to shut off the computer now and remove the hard drive. The drive could then be analyzed for recoverable file data on another system. You cannot do the analysis with the drive installed in your computer because your computer is using the drive as the SYSTEM drive, and is continuously writing new data to it. This is complicated, and involves looking for data in unallocated sectors, and using heuristics to guess how the sectors were linked into files, since the original file allocation tables and directory structure were overwritten when you restored the system. I don't know if the fine folks in the Geek Squad are equipped to do this, but it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Your chances of recovering any usable data depends on the amount of the previous data that got clobbered by the restore.

This would have been vastly less complicated if you'd tried to recover the data BEFORE doing the system restore. As long as the hard drive hadn't crashed, you could have taken the drive down to Best Buy and had it backed up on an external USB drive. Then you'd could safely clobber the drive by restoring the system, but you'd still have all of your files on the external drive.

I called Best Buy and they told me that it would cost anywhere from $250.00 - $1,600.00!! OUCH!! I think I will just start fresh and hope for the best.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

So my computer crashed and I lost all of our chat history over MSN, which is our main way of communication. I am saving them again starting today - any ideas? Ugh.. what a pain!

Telephone calling cards with primtable history. Printing your chats more often. Carbonite online back-up

[jimnlena 8]

The Icq chats would be logged on her end also! If so save the history, then get in habit of saving new history once a week. I email a copy of history so I always have on my hotmail.,

So my computer crashed and I lost all of our chat history over MSN, which is our main way of communication. I am saving them again starting today - any ideas? Ugh.. what a pain!