Has anyone every used data recovery software? How does it work?

Question

a couple of years ago my hard drive got infected and i ran antivirus software and after it was done it said "to remove the malware infections u must restart for the changes to take affect". I did and thats when it happend it went to the blue stop screen that alot of us have experienced and hate. Anyway i called best buy to see if they do any kind of recovery to get the data back and they said yes but at $150.

So i shelved it for a long time. But then recently i was looking online for some "do it yourself" recovery type programs that you can buy that says it will get the data loss back and repair your hd d and where u can run your own hd d diagnostics on it in one program. Has anybody used any kind of data recovery program before? and if so did u have any luck? and how does it work? thanks!


btw - i do have a p4, hp, xp, with 2 ide ribbons cables & 2 power cables conneted 2 the ribbons.

Answer 1

Linux- download a linux iso file(a distribution that supports NTFS), then burn it onto a CD, and insert a USB flash drive into the computer along with the linux CD. boot into linux, then use commands to move data from the C:\ drive(/dev/hda) to the USB drive(/dev/sda?). example:

mkdir /drive /usb

mount -t mkfs.ntfs /dev/hda /drive

mount -t mkfs.fat /dev/sda /usb

cd /drive

ls (to see your data)

cp (path/to/your/data) /usb

and the recovered data is on the usb flash drive for use on the other windoze machine(or the same one after a re-installation).

hard, i know, but foolproof!

Answer 2

I like the data recovery program from R-Studio. Is is fairly easy to use and what I liked it was able to get back all the data I had lost but I will say it is a little expensive, about $80 I believe. Not bad considering Best Buy wanted $150 from you and then you may even help friends out after buying it such as I did.

This is the deal I would try if I were you though to save a few bucks. Try installing the hard drive as a slave drive and see if you can get any data back off the drive that way. The blue screen of death doesn't mean you lost your data, just that there is a problem with the Windows operating system. So, the hard drive being set to slave should start up and run no problem and all data should be able to be transferred you want with no issues.

IF you do then you could try a data recovery program. Another word of advise, do not do any disk defragmenting if you ever do lose data by accidentally deleteing it. Sometimes that will erase the data completely or just make it next to impossible to recover. Then a more expensive program or service may be needed to get back any data.



Also the deal with the Limux trick would work but if not familar with Minux, stay away from it, Linux may wipe the whole drive clean if you format improperly which most people do cause they do not understand Linux. With the trick I told you about you are still in the Windows inviroment and should be comfortable doing this easy method. Just make sure to set the jumper on the back of the malfunctioning hard drive to SLAVE. You could also delete the Windows folder on the second SLAVE hard drive and still use it as storage unless you already have a second hard drive in the computer.

Answer 3

In simple terms, data recovery software works by shadowing your current data. However it is possible for some tools to recover data that has been lost. Basically whenever you delete a piece of software, all the system does is mark the data for overwriting, it doesn't actually delete your software. It only tells the computer that the data that currently resides 'here' is of no use and when some new data comes along, it can write it over this. So yes...it's possible, if you'd like to find some good quality data packages, I suggest you visit: http://www.insightempire.com/Datarecoveryopensource/ personally, I'd recommend you consult someone (maybe a friend) with alittle more experience just incase, so you don't end up worsening to problem.