Is there a way to recover data off a HD that has been semi-restored using recoveryCD

T

The-One

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I didn't realize that the user had 4000 songs in his itunes folder. But since his PC was loaded up with so much spyware that it was rediculously slow and just kept restarting explorer.exe and just wouldn't do anything. I booted into safe mode and turned off everything in the startup section. It didn't help. It was just unresponisve but alive like 50 trojans were working in the background. His laptop wouldn't let me boot off the CD-ROM for anything so I decided the only option was to do a sytem restore(F10) to factory settings. Half way through I found out he has almost 17GB+- of songs on his 100GB HD that was being recovered to factory settings. When I booted up on an external CD-ROM using UBCD4win (Was just informed we had one), Windows XP looked brand new with no songs or data anywhere to be found. So I'm assuming the data has been lost but hoping there is a way to retrieve it.


Is there anything I can do to retrieve these songs?
 
illegal or legal songs?

If they are legal, try using software like get data back. If they are illegal, then tough loss for the customer.

Thats my two cents.
 
The only way to know for sure is to get some data recovery software (the kind that runs OUTSIDE of an OS, meaning off a bootable CD/DVD and making the attempt). TestDisk is good stuff, but I'm not sure if it's good enough to help with that. You'll either recover some or all of the data depending on how much was placed on the partition by the restore process.

Most factory restores don't take up more than 10GB total, so... really, there is absolutely no way any of us can say "yes you'll get the songs back" or "no the client is completely fucked" at this point. You have to use something outside of an OS, off a bootable CD/DVD or even a USB stick if that's an option, and see what's physically left on the drive considering the areas near the beginning that the restore process has already trashed.

The restore process would have wiped the old partition table, refreshed it with new info, redid the MFT and directory information, so now what you'd be responsible for doing it raw data recovery without file or directory info.

I'd say there's something left on the drive if the guy had 17GB+ of songs. As for how much, nobody can say, it's up to you to do the thorough scan of the drive and go from there.

If commercial products are an option, I highly recommend R-Studio and then EasyRecovery as a backup.

Good luck, regardless... just don't use that hard drive for anything from this point on except reading the data - no write operations whatsoever or even more data loss can/will occur.
 
Ockie said:
illegal or legal songs?

If they are legal, try using software like get data back. If they are illegal, then tough loss for the customer.

Thats my two cents.
Click to expand...


+1.

OP - you could try a MiniXPE, BartPE, Auditor Linux...I'm sure there's plenty of others with pre-embedded disk tools on a bootable CD.
 
Ockie said:
illegal or legal songs?

If they are legal, try using software like get data back. If they are illegal, then tough loss for the customer.

Thats my two cents.
Click to expand...


The owner of the laptop claims all the songs were legit and that he has paid for them over the years. As well as having ripped 200 CD's over time to his HD. But I have no way to know for sure what is what. All I know is I deleted them and he flipped out on me and wants me to be fired. Although he did sign a paper stating that all data could be lost. I just would like try and get his songs back so I can feel better about the situation.
 
I have one for Windows that runs at the OS level that has worked surprisingly well. Granted, the more the person used the laptop after this happened the harder it will be to get the data off. It is called Stellar Phoenix Drive Recovery and it works for NTFS and FAT.
 
The-One said:
The owner of the laptop claims all the songs were legit and that he has paid for them over the years. As well as having ripped 200 CD's over time to his HD. But I have no way to know for sure what is what. All I know is I deleted them and he flipped out on me and wants me to be fired. Although he did sign a paper stating that all data could be lost. I just would like try and get his songs back so I can feel better about the situation.
Click to expand...

Honestly, if somone flipped out at me after the fact and after he forgot to tell me about those songs... then I wouldn't even bother to help him.

He was the one with spyware and garbage on his computer, he failed to mention that to you that he had those files on there, hard to believe someone owns 4,000 itunes files who has so much garbage on their computer, and now he wants you fired? I'd let him have his empty computer.
 
I just continued recovering his laptop to default and I'm done. I learned some valuable info from this though. I will now tell people to backup their system before I touch it. If they want me to do it then I will charge them for their lack of proper maintenance procedures.
 
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