I recently had to restore my PC as it wouldn't boot up. I have basically lost all my files and work....is there any way to bring any of it back? I had to use a 'destructive restore' as the standard restore wasn't working can anyone help?

They are gone unless you want to spend hundreds of dollars.

There is no such option as destructive restore. It is not called a resore on the CD - it's called a repair. When run the XP CD you have the option of using - the the first opportunity to Repair you see, the repair using the Command Console, - or you continue on to Setup and choose to Repair your existing Windows installation, which is NOT destructive, IF you install to the same directory Windows is now in, usually that's C:\Windows, - or you run a regular Setup which IS destructive but it is not a repair or a restore at all - it is starting over. You are warned when you choose that option that you will lose the existing data on the Windows installation (the partition Windows is on) - it re-formats it automatically, then starts Setup. (However it will not re-format other partitions, if you had data on other partitions.) I suspect you chose the last choice. For all practical purposes, unless you are a forensic data recovery expert or you it take to one, the vast majority of whatever you had on the hard drive is not recoverable. You could run a data recovery program with the drive as it is (e.g. Norton Unerase or some kind of other un-formating utility), but you would only be able to recover what data has not been overwritten. Same thing goes if you un-formatted the hard drive as it is, then ran a data recovery program - in that case you may be able to recover more data, but it will still be nothing like what you had. If you did not De-frag the hard drive not long before you re-loaded Windows, it is likely you will be able to recover very little. The first choice, repair using the Command Console, requires you know how to use it, and it might work, it might not. The second choice is what you should have tried - an XP Repair Setup. An XP Repair Setup will not harm your existing Windows installation, but it can only fix things Windows detects as wrong, and/or replace corrupted or missing Windows files that are on your original XP CD. If running it doesn't cure enough of your problems and/or the problems are caused by things not on the original Windows CD, you will probably have to make a clean install of Windows from scratch. how to do an XP Repair Setup, step by step: http://www.windowsreinstall.com/winxppro/installxpcdrepair/indexfullpage.htm

what is a destructive restore? The only way to get your files back may be a file recovery program. I use one called scavenger ($49), they have a demo so you can see what is on the HD even if you did a fresh install of XP. Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

Yes, another American consumer gets ripped off by Microsoft and big business with the blessing of the paid-off politicians in Washington. M/Soft USED to supply a system disk so that you could perform a repair restore on your operating system without destroying the data. But hey, now they sell you a license number and a "image restore partition" on the harddrive. Increases profits nicely. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime; Then industry pollutes the water and kills all the fish.

"they sell you a license number and a "image restore partition" on the harddrive." That's not Microsoft, that's the OEM manufacturers like Compaq, Dell, Gateway, etc. I think Dark emotion has an OEM system. Their destructive restores wipe the drive before restoring the image. Do yourself a favor BACKUP!

"Their destructive restores wipe the drive before restoring the image." That's not actually perfectly accurate. They don't wipe the drive, but they overlay what was there with the image, so it almost amounts to the same thing. Do yourself a favor BACKUP!