Data Recovery
Okay here is the issue...I have old laptop that an employee deleted all the info off of it and reinstalled windows 98 on the drive. Does anyone know off anyway to recover info off of the drive??? I know its a long shot but there was critcal data on the drive that was deleted on purpose and now needs to be restored! Please help.
If I were you, I would download a copy of Winhex (about $50 USD, I think). Remove the harddrive, mount it in another machine and use Winhex it access the device... you don't even need to mount it under windows (which I would recommend NOT to do). This will recover a good chunk of deleted files. I used it for a cursory forenic analysis of one of my corporate machines.
http://www.x-ways.net/winhex/
http://www.x-ways.net/winhex/
I highly doubt you will be able to recover any of it, regardless of software or services you buy. I think your at a loss here.
The only way your getting any data back is If you had Al Queda phone numbers and addresses on it, then the FBI or CIA would use an electron microscope to examine trace bits to reconstruct every single bit manually...which would take months and millions of dollars worth of man hours and equipment. This would not likely be an option for you.
Your best bet at this point is to implement a company policy that governs desktops and mobile computers.
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No saving critical files on your desktops or mobile machines. Instead files are saved to a server, and clients work with "Offline files" if needed. Instead of My documents folder, users should save to User shared folders on the network, which you would have a backup method in place to recover any accidental deletes.
Users are forbidden to load any software onto your computers without explicit permission.
Users are forbidden to remove any software from your computers without explicit permission.
Users agree to this policy, and understand that failure to comply could result in immediate termination.
X_______________ ______________ ___/____/____
sign Print Date
good luck...
The only way your getting any data back is If you had Al Queda phone numbers and addresses on it, then the FBI or CIA would use an electron microscope to examine trace bits to reconstruct every single bit manually...which would take months and millions of dollars worth of man hours and equipment. This would not likely be an option for you.
Your best bet at this point is to implement a company policy that governs desktops and mobile computers.
--------------------------
No saving critical files on your desktops or mobile machines. Instead files are saved to a server, and clients work with "Offline files" if needed. Instead of My documents folder, users should save to User shared folders on the network, which you would have a backup method in place to recover any accidental deletes.
Users are forbidden to load any software onto your computers without explicit permission.
Users are forbidden to remove any software from your computers without explicit permission.
Users agree to this policy, and understand that failure to comply could result in immediate termination.
X_______________ ______________ ___/____/____
sign Print Date
good luck...
I was told SR6 (spin rite 6.x) can recover data even after a format has been performed. All though I find this very hard to believe, it could be worth a try if it’s that important.
The program goes through five steps, in DOS, and I've used it successfully, on old hard drives that are physically on there way out, with damaged data or corrupted OS’s. But never on a format let me know how it goes ;)
Your other option is to send it off to specialists, which ends up costing big money and they don’t really promise anything.
The program goes through five steps, in DOS, and I've used it successfully, on old hard drives that are physically on there way out, with damaged data or corrupted OS’s. But never on a format let me know how it goes ;)
Your other option is to send it off to specialists, which ends up costing big money and they don’t really promise anything.
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As you may already know, if a partition on the hard drive is deleted, all the data on the disk is still intact, and there is a good chance everything can be recovered by certain recovery software. Personally I've been using Ontrack Easyrecovery Pro (http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoveryprofessional/) with good results. The problem here of course is that some of the data has been overwritten by the Windows 98 installation. Some of the data is most likely still intact and can be recovered, but if the data indeed is critical, there are professional data recovery services that can restore even multiple times overwritten data in certain conditions. In my opinion IBAS (http://www.ibas.com/) is the best one, but be prepared to pay several hundred dollars just for initial examination to inform whether any data can be recovered, and after that several thousand depending on the amount of data and other conditions. If you really need the data back this is by far the best and safest option, and if the data is critical, remove the drive immediately and don't try any homebrew recovery tactics to avoid any further damage to the data. The service is expensive, so you'll have to assess whether the data is worth it.
ASKER
I'm in the process of trying a few thing to restore data now. The process is pretty slow so i will post again once i have a answer.
SysInternals Uneraser is good, and cheap.
Unless the drive has been heavily fragmented since you may be able to recover the data.
You can get a free version that will show you what it will be able to recover, before buying it for around $30 for memory
Unless the drive has been heavily fragmented since you may be able to recover the data.
You can get a free version that will show you what it will be able to recover, before buying it for around $30 for memory
ASKER
Thanks evryone! I did mange to recover some file... the "recover my files" software seemed to work the best.
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20607973/How-to-Unformat.html
One more software:
http://www.file-recovery.net/soft.htm
They claim to recover data from formatted disk as well. But its not free.
But you can download their demo version and check if it could recover the files.(It will show you the list of files which it can recover.) If you see relavent file then you can purchase it.