Can System Reovery be overturned by System Restore?

System Recovery overwrites previously restored data.. System Restore Points are saved
as data, and regardless your personal files are not covered under system restore! Data
is not backed up in system restore points, just system files and settings.

Are you trying to recover data, or programs that were installed?

Has the System Recovery already ran, and you have already logged back onto the machine
to find everything gone?

System Recovery ran.  I am not at the site of the computer, as I'm sick and it's my husband's office computer (he's not very familiar w/ computer stuff).  He says that there are not data files.  Windows and other programs now are asking for the Product Codes.  I told him not to touch the computer again until I check with  EE.  Thanks

You don't say what type of computer it is.  Is it HP Pavilion?  If so, there is an option under System Recovery to perform a "nondestructive" recovery -- which would presumably save your data and installed programs -- but if your husband says there are no data files and you are being asked to reinstall programs, it is likely that it was not chosen or it did not work.  See this page:

http://www.pctechbytes.com/hprecovery.htm

Last time I had a client do this, it just created a new user Apps had to be reinstalled, but at least he could get in. Might need to take ownership of the data folders, to access them....

Under C: Docs and settings\, are the old profile folders present?

How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

blueminnow:

Please clarify. What is it your husband is trying to recover? Is he trying to recover
to a system state, to access previously installed programs, or is he most importantly
trying to recover DATA?

As Lee suggests above, if he is being prompted for Product Code entry for WinXP
then it appears he did not run the NON-DESTRUCTIVE recovery. Please answer the
question above regarding what it is you are trying to recover.

We are trying to recover the data files.

The computer is an HP Pavilion.

Thanks

Do you see the older Data folders in My computer>C:?

Ok.. Then if he did not do the Non-Destructive recovery I would say
the files are gone.

I pulled this quote from the link that follows. Best explained in the following
paragraph. Even if you can recover SOME of the data, if we are talking
database or spreadsheet tables, if the hard drive had fragmentation or the
pieces of the data where of significant size, they all "probably did not reside
on the same location on the drive, therfor the chances of them being overwritten
during the recovery process is possible. Check out this site if you are into reading
and here is an excerpt:

Taken from: http://www.runtime.org/recoverability.htm

"The Type of Data Influences the Success Rate
We must also consider the kind of data that needs to be recovered. Just assume you are able to recover a hypothetical 90% of all lost files. If these files were pictures you can consider this rate a success, you got 9 out of 10 pictures back. If your files were tables of a database and 10% are missing, the entire database will probably be worthless because the data depends on each other. The more the data is depending on each other, the greater the devastation will be if even a small percentage of data is missing. We will also will look at what "90% recovered" really means. Another interesting aspect will be the "time dimension": a data recovery is usually worth less with each day, sometimes each hour, that passed by."

To add to this thread.

It is one thing to recover data that was deleted by accident, from an intact O/S,
and something totally different from a drive that has been reformatted!

Reformatting a drive is what most people/companies will do when they want
to wipe a drive clean before destruction/disposal.

When you delete a file on your computer, it actually does not go anywhere.
It is basically removed from the Master File Table, and the actual file will reside on
the drive until another piece of data takes it's place. This is why it is important when you
need to do a data recovery that the machine is not used until the recovery process
can be attempted.

johnb6767:  I don't see the old data folders under C:\Docs and Settings.  The User name we had is no longer there either.  However, under My Documents, there ARE still data files from before.  Apparently these are under Administrator.  What can/should I do now?  Thanks.