How To Recover Lost Data ?

[Neverseen 0]

Damn, I'm having so much problems with my PC lately, you couldn't even imagine. And here comes the biggest one.
In fact, I was running Windows98 since 1999 and some days ago I've upgraded my system with a new motherboard, new CPU and new DDR memory. So I thought it was time to move from Windows98 to WindowsXP. I've got 2 different hard drives, one of 40GB and another one of 160GB but divided in 4 partitions of 40GB.. So in all I've got 5 HDD (C: D: E: F: and G: ) My Windows98 was installed on C: . My drive D: was used to store different files. And I decided to install my WindowsXP to my E: drive. So I proceed with the installation, BUT my PC has shut down because of extreme CPU heating (as explained in another topic). Then after all I managed to install this WindowsXP, BUT now when I went to see my D: drive, I first saw some strange folders' and files' names .. something like сьъ2ОЛДк and decided to check this drive for errors. I loaded Windows98, because there I've got some good utilities.. I started Disk Doktor from Norton Utility and it was fixing "Tables allocation" during 14 hours !!!! When it finished to fix, it asked to reboot.. I rebooted, and what do you think I've seen on my D: drive ? When I click on it it says "4GB of free space" BUT when I enter, it's VOID !!!!! There's NOTHING in there ! And I had a lot of very very VERY important files there which I haven't made a backup of
My mate told me he had a lot of good data recovery software, so I asked him to bring it to me. He has got R-Studio, Recover My Files, GetDataBack,... I've tryed them all, and NONE of them succeeded to recover my lost files. Even the files, that were found, were corrupted after I saved them. So I'm really pissed off now and have no Idea how I'll do to bring my important files back. Now, some hours ago, I've noticed EXACTLY the same problem on another drive !! Not the whole drive, but just some folders with these strange filenames like ПФо;рхб... I guess this might be a virus (not sure tho). But if anyone of you already has had this kind of problems, please tell me how to recover my files!!! I hope that this is at least not impossible...

By the way, my sistem is FAT32..

Please help me! Your help will be highly appreciated!!

[WeaponX 0]

Just to clarify things here, you have two hard drives and 5 "partitions" Just FYI for next time

Did you replace the motherboard just like that? A major hardware change like replacing the motherboard can be an issue on its own.

OK, did you try installing XP again on that same partition? If you have another working computer, I suggest mounting this hard drive you have here into that computer as a slave drive. Power up the computer and see if you can spot a new drive letter in My Computer (that should be your hard drive). If so, see if you can access your data there. Just a word of caution though, if the data is really corrupted though, try not to work on this computer that much (or at all). This is because everytime you use it and data gets written to the drive, your corrupted data might get even worse - making it harder to recover.

See if you can get the data back after installing XP. If not, try that method that I just mentioned earlier. Otherwise, if all else fails and your data is really crucial to you, then head over to GRC and try using that SpinRite program. Buy the program if it works. If not, then go to DriveSavers and get a price quote on recovering your data. I tell you one thing though, it's not cheap...

[sparx 0]

I'll also recommend that you try to recover your data by running some recovery software off another HDD is you can manage to get your hands on one.

Another option would be to run the software off a USB memory stick or some other allied flash media.

I recommend you first try the freeware before sending the HDD to recovery experts.
First try PC Inspector File Recovery before trying to recover data using any other recovery software like EasyRecover etc. Also, do NOT install any other software to that partition or the hard disk on which it is located and try your best to keep the machine running without any re-boots to prevent new data from overwriting your existing data.
Be advised that recovery of data is an extremely hit-and-miss process and the result scan never be guaranteed, so be mindful of vendors who promise that you'll get your data back as it was.

Finally, Good Luck... Have a Happy New Year and I do hope that you had backed up your critical data to another location.