my aspire 1 killed my vista desktop!

Discussion in 'Acer Aspire One' started by usacamaro, Aug 2, 2008.

  1. usacamaro

    usacamaro

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    BIG PROBLEM!!!!

    i tried to create a usb recovery disk. I followed the directions that came with the aspire one. I set my desktop to boot from the linux disk. all seamed to be working well, until I removed the usb stick, and recovery disk and restarted my dell. guess what!!!! it was trying to boot the acer linux!

    i think i reformatted the wrong drive. I lost all my files and the worst, i lost all my photos of my daughter. My wife has been cryig for hours.

    what can i do?
     
    usacamaro, Aug 2, 2008
    #1
  2. usacamaro

    macles

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    I can not pass by without giving you some advice.

    There are three menu entries on the recovery disk, the first will format the drive and install linpus linux, the second will make the recovery usb drive. It appears you picked the wrong one. Vista is gone.

    However, the pictures are very likely still there. The recovery tool simply created a new partition table and installed linpus linux. Now the partition table that was created only uses 7.51GB of the whole disk, with only about 3GB of data actually written. So let's assume the hard drive is 100GB. Only 1/33th of it was overwritten.

    A professional will able to recover all the data that has not been overwritten. With some research you might be able to do it yourself. Most important is to not use the drive anymore at all, it will only make things worse.

    That's all advice i can give.
     
    macles, Aug 2, 2008
    #2
  3. usacamaro

    deslock

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    There are many file recovery tools (ranging from free to reasonably priced to fairly expensive) that you could use. But if I were you, I'd bring it to someone experienced with this sort of thing. Whether you have a friend help you or go to a professional, politely ask them not to write anything to the drive. Instead, they should do the restore/recovery to another drive or DVD-Rs.

    I've read stories about people who brought a hard drive to a so-called professional service to recover data only to find out that some incompetent technician either:

    • mistakenly formatted it instead of copying anything from it or[/*:m:27drjfqv]
    • restored only part of the data and copied it back onto the drive, overwriting the other lost data (that could've been recovered otherwise).[/*:m:27drjfqv]
    Good luck!
     
    deslock, Aug 3, 2008
    #3
  4. usacamaro

    rjm

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    As others have said, the data is mostly all still there, easiest thing is just to pop the drive out, stick in into an external case, and connect it to another PC and start looking around.

    However don't take this the wrong way but its gotta be said: this is why you back up your data on a regular basis. Heck Vista does this automatically for you if you give it half a chance!
     
    rjm, Aug 3, 2008
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  5. usacamaro

    Raido

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    Agree with Rjm and the others: most likely, most of your data (possibly all, if you're very lucky) is still there but the partition table and some stuff got overwritten. Unless you're experienced with this sort of thing (and I'm guesstimating that's not the case) I would *not* go about messing with the drive now. As said, stick it in an external case or take the pc to a knowledgeable technician. Even though there are good recovery tools, if you set those up wrong it may make things worse.

    (And, yes: it sounds like you *didn't* make a backup and therefore you made just about the biggest dumb mistake any pc owner could make. Especially since there is no way you could have missed the ample advice from just about any source to make backups regularly. This one is like having sex but not knowing what a condom is.)

    ..And don't forget to unplug the thing and get rid of static before removing the drive..!

    Good luck, R
     
    Raido, Aug 3, 2008
    #5
  6. usacamaro

    Bascha

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    Tell your wife not to vory and stop crying, this will be fine.
    Like everyone says: Data is still there. A delet or format will actually not remove anything from the disk, it will just "open" the disk to allow data to be written to clusters, to write over exsisting data. What you need to do now to retrive the pictures (which i guess is the most important):
    1. Unplug your HDD fropm the computer. !IMPORTANT! Do NOT try to install a new OS or anything on this disk! Doing that, it will write over and erase the former data!
    2. Get another HDD and install your OS to this HDD
    3. Get a external USB HDD enclosuer and put the OLD disk into it and connect it to your computer.
    4. Get a data recovery software like "Get data back for NTFS". There are lots of programs out there. Also freeware. Most of the software can be tried out first to the extent that you can scan the disk but not retrieve any data unless you pay up for a license. If the first software you try don't work, don't give up. Try another one. "Get data back for NTFS" have worked good for me. Notice that Software like this is often based on the filesystem. Now I don't actually know if your FS is NTFS hence that you might have formatted the disk in the linux filesystem. You need to do some reasearching yourself here. But a bit of googleing should set you one the right way.

    There is also a way to do this from a USB stick, using BartPE and plugins. At the bottom of this site: http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-downloads.htm you can find BartPE, but again, you need to do a bit of googeling to learn.

    Last possibility is to check some local computer tech service. The can without a doubt do this for you, but it might cost a bit.

    Hope i works out for you.
     
    Bascha, Aug 4, 2008
    #6
  7. usacamaro

    terlamlam

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    Don't worry, I FACE THE SAME BIG TROUBLE and resolve now.

    1. Connect another bootable harddisk (make sure have empty space to save all the data from the killed disk) to boot windows and install to this harddisk the download trial version "recovery my file" software;
    2. Run the software it will show you the data in the killed harddisk (file name and folder structure still kept);
    3. You cannot save the files unless you get the activation code by pay online.
    4. Save the file to the bootable harddisk.
    5. After you make sure all data saved to the new disk, you can format the killed harddisk and use it again.

    Hope this help.
     
    terlamlam, Aug 4, 2008
    #7
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