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Restore Points

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by davidanelson

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My computer did a system recovery, I had a restore point but the computer will not take me to that Restore Point. any idea on how to get to the restore point and get my files back.

7 replies

by the scummy one

you re-installed your OS with the system recovery cd for the computer?
or, you fixed a boot issue with a boot recovery?

If the first, your data is gone.
If the second, your data is still there (most likely) and if you get it to boot properly, you can get to it.

As for System Restore, it does not restore files, only registry entries. Using this will not get any files back.

Please explain better the situation, so that someone can help better.

by davidanelson

I fixed a boot issue with a boot recovery. How do I get to the files back that where on the computer before the boot recovery? I am looking at the computer and it looks like I just took it out of the box. All the programs are 30 day trial known of the programs or files are available to me.

by older mycroft

You have invoked a complete System Recovery back to what is called 'The Factory State'.

You are looking at exactly what you would have seen the very first time you switched this computer on, having just taken ownership of it and removing it from its box.

This 'recovery' involved formatting your entire hard drive and reinstalling the system that you were presented with on Day One. Anything that you might have had on the hard drive, prior to this recovery operation, is gone. Gone as if it never existed.

[b]HOWEVER[/b] - if your system has a hard drive with two partitions (commonly labeled as C: & D: - as if you have 2 hard drives) then there is a strong chance that whatever was on the second drive (D:) is most likely still there because the system recovery is only applied to the System Disc (the C: partition).

If you still have the D: partition and its data remains intact, its contents will only be usable if they are DATA. If you had any programs installed on this partition they will now be unusable, because their Registry entries will no longer exist within the newly installed operating system. They will need to be installed all over again from the original install media.

by older mycroft

You haven't given us much detail to work from but I'll assume that you are running Windows XP. Navigate as follows:

Start > My Computer - how many Hard Disk Drives are listed?

You will have one (maybe with a name then..) with (C:) at the end of its label. If you have another partition it will appear here as (D:).

You should really already know if you have a second partition because you would have already been using it before the reinstall. But if it doesn't appear, you don't have it.

The second partition usually exists from the start, if you have a laptop computer, although it can be done on any format of machine.

I'm afraid you will just have to start installing again from the start.

There are a few things you should be installing [b]BEFORE YOU LET THIS MACHINE LOOSE ON THE INTERNET![/b]

A third-party firewall, like ZoneAlarm.
An anti-virus package, like Avast.
An antimalware program, like MalwareByte's AntiMalware.

These are all free and easily found for download on Google.

by willcomp

Since you don't know or haven't told us exactly what you did, I'm assuming that you ran the System Recovery from a boot screen. If so, some of you files may (a weak may) be recoverable. Most hard disk based system restore utilities write an image to the hard disk. There's an outside chance that data files might not have been overwritten.

GetDataBack has a trial which allows one to see if files are recoverable. Give it a try. In the meantime do not install any additional software.
http://www.runtime.org/

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