Lost Drive D: with all my data and photos

T

Tlbear

New Member
Hi,

In a bit of a mess and would appreciate any help.

Was installing software on my Dell Inspiron 530 with Vista 32 froze up. I rebooted but found that I lost all data in Drive D: Drive D: properties shows 0 bytes used and 0 bytes free.

I tried to do a system restore but it says that I need to format Drive D:


When trying to install new software I get an Error Message: Error 1324.Thepath Program Files contain an invalid character


Terry
 

My Computer

System One

Hello and welcome.

Interesting problem...

Ok well, lets try this. Turn off the computer, and open the case. Unplug then replug the HDD that is the problem. Then reboot. If still no luck, then...
Agh I had an idea but I totally blanked on it...

Do you have another desktop computer? Take out the HDD and hook it up into another computer, and try to access it that way.

~Lordbob
 

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I take it you don't have another computer to try it in?

Hmmm... I'm not great with data recovery...

Trying it in another PC would let you see if the disk is bad or just the settings for it on that computer.. I still think that is the best bet for now.

~Lordbob
 

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Just a quick question here (I don't really have an answer for your problem, but this might help someone go further) - is drive D: a physical drive (you have two separate hard disks in the machine) or is it just a logical drive - i.e. a partition on one single drive? --ch
 

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Can you get into the computer?
And what software were you "installing" when your problem occured?
Also what was on "D" drive?
 

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try booting the windows vista or xp installations just to the part where you can see what hardrives you have visible. i have had this happen to a flash drive,i later found that is was in RAW format.also i agree with sygnus, what software were you installing
 

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Dell Inspiron 530 as far as i know has lot of issues - If this system was a factory installed HDD then the D drive will be the recovery partion that will contain the PC Restore and then Hardware Diagnostics for the system - Did you format the system and then create the Partion D: then it will be your system partion.
IF u see the Drive in My Computer then you can format the Drive as it is showing as 0 used and 0 free. After formating the Drive Use Recuva 1.23.389 this is a software that you can use to recover the files that are deleted - deleted even from recycle bin - of a drive that is formated.





Hope it works,
-Jerin
 

My Computer

System One

Jerin, Fatboy4,sygnus21 and chmillman, Thank you for your suggestions and thoughts.


I have a logical drive logical drive D: Whatever somes standard on Dell:

C: Drive, D: Drive and E: Recovery Drive


Jerin, I've got Recuva on my computer and will try your suggestions. Thanks a lot.

Terry
 

My Computer

System One

Seeing as it is a prebuilt, I would guess at one drive.

~Lordbob
 

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Recuva is not that helpful, but what might help is to try to write to D. If you can't, then my only suggestion is to format the partition and then do a system restore. Maybe System Restore is telling you that D has info but it is unreadable. If you format it to NTFS, it won't delete the info, but will make it readable, probably.

Go to:
Click START
Type "Computer Management"
On the left, under Storage, click Disk Management
Right click D and click format.

That is the only solution I could think of. Sorry if I'm mistaken about formatting.
 

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Jerin said:
Dell Inspiron 530 as far as i know has lot of issues - If this system was a factory installed HDD then the D drive will be the recovery partion that will contain the PC Restore and then Hardware Diagnostics for the system - Did you format the system and then create the Partion D: then it will be your system partion.
IF u see the Drive in My Computer then you can format the Drive as it is showing as 0 used and 0 free. After formating the Drive Use Recuva 1.23.389 this is a software that you can use to recover the files that are deleted - deleted even from recycle bin - of a drive that is formated.

Hope it works,
-Jerin
Click to expand...

Excuse me,

The program you suggest does not support a reformatted hard drive. I just visited the site and read about the software and nowhere in the writing does it say it’ll recover files from a reformatted hard drive.

I’ll admit that I’m not familiar with recovery programs, but I can read and that program doesn’t do what you think it does. It says nothing about a reformatted hard drive.

You’re telling him to reformat the hard drive first, and then run the program. That’s wrong as the drive has already been erased…there’s nothing for Recuva to recover. :)

Are there programs that can recover files from a reformatted hard drive… probably, but “Recuva” ain’t it.

Recuva 1.23.389
 

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Hi Sygnus21

Actually, refornatting doesn't erase any data at all.
All a format does is remove the header info in the MFT and lets Windows know that it's OK to write to those areas now, and even that header data can be recovered from the MFT. Data is only "Truly" lost when it has been overwritten, and reformatting does not over write anything, all his data will still be there.

While I'm not sure about Recuva and how well it works, there are many free data recovery tools available these days that will restore files quite adeptly

Now what bothers me here is the D: drive shouldbe the recovery partition, and AFAIremember, it "Should" show 0 bytes used and 0 available. I haven't worked on an OEM recovery partition for some time but usually the locking process used by OEM's to keep users out of that partition makes it show those 0 byte readings.

I'm off to bed now but I'll check on that later.
 

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R-Studio is very good at recovering formatted and even re-partitioned drives.
 

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Chappy said:
Actually, refornatting doesn't erase any data at all.
All a format does is remove the header info in the MFT and lets Windows know that it's OK to write to those areas now, and even that header data can be recovered from the MFT. Data is only "Truly" lost when it has been overwritten, and reformatting does not over write anything, all his data will still be there.
Click to expand...
I never knew that! Thanks a lot Chappy!

~Lordbob
 

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Chappy said:
Hi Sygnus21

Actually, refornatting doesn't erase any data at all.
All a format does is remove the header info in the MFT and lets Windows know that it's OK to write to those areas now, and even that header data can be recovered from the MFT. Data is only "Truly" lost when it has been overwritten, and reformatting does not over write anything, all his data will still be there.

While I'm not sure about Recuva and how well it works, there are many free data recovery tools available these days that will restore files quite adeptly
Click to expand...

Thanks Chappy.

I do have a question though? Am I right about Recuva? I would think that if it could recover files from a reformated hard drive it would say so, as this "would" be an important feature?

Thanks.
 

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Hi sygnus,

You may not be right about Recuva .

I found that Glaryundelete was able find and restore files even after format and reinstall - the ones that hadn't been overwritten, obviously.

It is a free program and doesn't make any claims to be able to do that - I have it as part of the Glaryutilities, it is also available separately.

Glary Utilities

Glary Undelete

Perhaps Recuva would do the same - haven't tried it.

Hope it helps

SIW2
 

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Meant to say - The difference between Glaryundelete, Recuva and, for example, this program - Recover My Files, is that Recover My Files specifically states it recovers files from formatted drives; Recuva make no mention of such capability. That's the whole point of my argument.


Recover My Files

  • File recovery after accidental format, even if you have reinstalled Windows.
  • Disk recovery after a hard disk crash
  • Get back files after a partitioning error
  • Get data back from RAW hard drives
Click to expand...

Are we saying that ALL recovery programs can recover files from a reformated disk? If tha't the case, then I stand corrected. Not looking to be confrontational, just some clearification. :)

Thanks
 
Last edited:

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Thank you all for your suggestions. I reformatted Drive D and used Recuva. It produced a flood of data but it was very difficult to find anything useful.

I had used Recuva before in helping a friend recover lost photos for him in his camera and recovered all his photos.

Terry
 

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Hi Sygnus

Yah, I would tend to agree, if a program doesn't specifically say that it can recover from a formatted drive, I would stay away from it and look for one that DOES say it can.

I prefer GetDatBack and R-Studio myself, paid programs but very effective and I've never had a problem with them when recovering stuff from other people's machines...and my own once or twice..;)
 

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