Disaster

**Hilarion** · February 22, 2010, 06:58 PM

My parents' computer (Windows XP) had a virus so I shut it down and started system recovery, thinking it would restore the computer to an earlier point. I quickly realized it was reformatting the whole drive so I shut off the computer. Now the computer won't start (missing some system file). I'm worried important documents or pictures may have been deleted. At which point during system recovery are the documents deleted?

**Swagger** · February 22, 2010, 07:10 PM

at my knowledge, unless you're a super computer engineer/nerd.. forget the file you had at your PC

there's a hyper chance you wont be able to access them anymore

**Hilarion** · February 22, 2010, 07:16 PM

Even if the formatting process was shut off right away?

**Spiff** · February 22, 2010, 07:45 PM

Recovering the contents of that drive is possibly going to be tricky - the best way i can think of doing it is to hook that hard disk up to a second computer as a secondary drive and see if the partition is still available to read from that computer. That way you aren't risking doing further damage by installing recovery programs to the drive you want to recover data from. If its accessible, copy whatevers still there and try and recover whatevers missing.

As far as i know the formatting process tends to not actually erase the data, rather it just reports the space that the data uses as empty and free to be used again - so when the space is ultimately used again it to make the original data increasingly hard to recover.

Im not really sure what options you have with windows XP - whether theres an option to repair a windows installation without formatting or not. It seems likely to me that you are going to have to complete the format/reinstall now that youve started it - but the chances that youll be able to recover a lot of your files is fairly high if theyre relatively small pictures and things like that. Chances are some of it will be pretty much lost forever though.

Then again its likely someone here will know more about this than I do.

**GrnEyedDvl** · February 22, 2010, 07:48 PM

You can still recover files.

But the system restore does not perform a format. It rewrites some system files and registry entries from backup. Unless it actually SAID formatting then shutting it off was a mistake.

Try booting to a Windows CD and using the Repair Windows Installation. This will rewrite system files without touching user files.

**Hilarion** · February 22, 2010, 07:58 PM

Thank you very much for the advice! I've been panicking because I know my family keeps pictures and stuff on there that they don't want to lose. Now there is new hope! Tomorrow I'm going to give the computer to a friend of mine who owns a computer support business, so he can extract the files from the drive. I was just worried that all of them were permanently deleted. I love the TWC community. Rep and cheers for both of you intelligent and helpful fellows.

**Simetrical** · February 25, 2010, 03:43 PM

As GED says, System Restore overwrites system files, by design. If you shut it off in the middle, you probably have half-updated files, which won't work. You should never shut off system updates or things like that while they're running. Your files are all probably fine, I'd bet you could see them if you just stuck the disk into another computer. I'd do as GED says and run a repair from your Windows CD.

**Hilarion** · February 25, 2010, 03:55 PM

Well I gave it to my friend and he's now running the Spinrite utility... apparently the "NTFS file system" had been corrupted.

**GrnEyedDvl** · February 25, 2010, 04:12 PM

Originally Posted by Lord Faucon

Well I gave it to my friend and he's now running the Spinrite utility... apparently the "NTFS file system" had been corrupted.

Because it was in the middle of being fixed when you turned it off. You should be able to get your stuff off of it.

**Top-Tier-Tech** · February 25, 2010, 05:40 PM

I'll be amazed if your able to fix it (having the virus doesn't help), I've run windows repair for a similar reason once and it couldn't fix anything, either way it's your parents fault for not backing up their data, computers can crash at any time for any reason.

**Hilarion** · February 25, 2010, 05:54 PM

My friend basically can't get anything to work... even after running Spinrite and Windows Repair. It's looking like there might be a combination of issues besides just that I prematurely shut off system recovery. My dad works for a university so he's going to give it to the tech people there and see if they can't do anything.