My Laptop has Deleted Everything!!!

[Gaz W]

Chaps,

Woke up this morning, booted up Laptop, and everything has been restored back to factory settings, deleting all my music, files, pictures!!!!! Although, all of my software/programmes seem to be here still!

How do I get it back/what have I done for it to do it?!!

Hell of a lot of important stuff i've lost! :(

[Wheelie_Clean]

I am no expert but the first thing that comes to mind is to use system restore if Vista has that option?

[Gaz W]

The laptop is running XP Media Centre 2002 SP2.

[dodger]

Have you backup it up an an external drive? How can an operating system reset to factory default? You must have a virus in the system.

[Ducky]

Sounds like a profile reset....have you tried searching the drive for any of the files to see if they're still there?

[Gaz W]

Nope, no backup. Something i've never really thought of...

Virus? I'm running more security software than you can shake a stick at.

[Gaz W]

Sounds like a profile reset....have you tried searching the drive for any of the files to see if they're still there?

Your a genious!! Indeed, searched for a few folders and they have came up, so i'm guessing that will apply to everything.

Thanks!

[pstevo]

Never seen that happen before...
A very weird one...
Bit late now but you ever considered an external HD...very cheap now about £50 for a 500G...had a few crashes in the past and lost a lot of items ....
Is worth a thought the Ex HD...
good luck trying to fix the problem..

[Wheelie_Clean]

Have you tried - start - help & support - undo changes with system restore?

[Estoril-5]

youre lucky mate! my hadrdrive failed which cannot be recovered, well it can but it will cost about £500 and still they cannot guarantee they can recover data.

it had all my wedding pics, honeymoon pics, family photos etc and a lot of documents!

for £60 you can get an external drive, do it.

i now have to pay for a second honeymoon cos my mrs is upset!

[Gaz W]

I'm deffo going to invest in an External HDD I think, can't risk loosing some stuff.

[EliteCarCare]

Gaz,

I use a program called Memeo Autobackup (http://www.memeo.com), it backs up "on the fly" so you don't have to set it to run at a specific time etc, it just monitors for any changes and backs up accordingly. Great piece of kit and cheap too.. :thumb:

As for your Laptop, your data is probably still there, have you tried a system restore to a previous restore point?

[Gaz W]

Yes, the data is still there, its just jumbled up a bit as I did a search for some files and folders. Just need to re-order it.

[Killahertz]

youre lucky mate! my hadrdrive failed which cannot be recovered, well it can but it will cost about £500 and still they cannot guarantee they can recover data.

it had all my wedding pics, honeymoon pics, family photos etc and a lot of documents!

for £60 you can get an external drive, do it.

i now have to pay for a second honeymoon cos my mrs is upset!

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

I've not used it myself - I follow the Security Now podcast - Spinnrite is a highly rated prog - and at about £45 versus £500, could be worth a punt?

[wolliwuk]

You haven't inadvertently downloaded and installed the new XP Service pack 3 in your updates have you because there seems to be a lot of people experiencing strange things happening after that has been downloaded?

[Jakedoodles]

Should have bought a mac ;)

[adamf]

Nothing weird about that. Try supporting users who feck up their roaming profiles all the time!

Well done for working it out Gaz but remember Backup Backup Backup! Even if it's on a few DVD's kept round a relatives house just incase. Don't always trust external HDD's I've had 2 mess up this year so far. Good ones to

Always good to have backups of backups of stuff like wedding photos

[mouthyman]

try downloading pcinspector its free and can recover deleted files

[uberbmw]

Should have bought a mac ;)

Indeed, Time Machine FTW! :D

Defo get a External HDD mate :thumb:

[Will-S]

I did that once trying to set up a local network. Deleted the network and it deleted all my personal files.:wall:
Had to spend £30 quid on some file recovery software to restore all the files.
Turns out even if you have deleted a file it still remains on the hard drive. Window just doesn't show you it. Eventually through time (a long time) it is overwritten. Guess this is the type of thing the authorities use to track convict criminals.

[Thomas-182]

I've had this happen to me before, not sure how it happens but there you go.

I've got 8TB of backup space now, just in case :p