had win 98 installed xp
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Original Message
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Name: meatpuppetz
Date: September 22, 2004 at 14:41:46 Pacific
Subject: had win 98 installed xpOS: 98CPU/Ram: 1.2G 64 mb |
Comment: Ok my friend has a computer that had windows 98 on it and they just installed windows xp on it, then they realized that they had VERY important files on it when 98 was on it so the question is, is there a way that they can get those files back?? I told them to back them up on disk but they forgot.
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Response Number 1
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Name: Derek
Date: September 22, 2004 at 14:58:27 Pacific
Subject: had win 98 installed xp |
Reply: (edit)We need to know exactly what they did and what file types have gone missing. If they "Updated" from W98 to XP the files should still be on there somewhere. Maybe they can search for one or more of them. If they reformatted and put XP on afresh I wouldn't give much for their chances. Derek.W
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Response Number 2
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Name: meatpuppetz
Date: September 22, 2004 at 15:36:42 Pacific
Subject: had win 98 installed xp |
Reply: (edit)well they said that win98 was on it and they went to install the xp it came up on the screen that the win 98 files would be deleted so they proceeded to install the winxp. Thats all they could tell me. The files that were important were documents. Like wordpad files i believe they said.
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Response Number 3
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Name: jubalsams
Date: September 22, 2004 at 16:00:03 Pacific
Subject: had win 98 installed xp |
Reply: (edit)As Derek says, not much chance, especially if they also used NTFS. Maybe try one of these :
DriveRescue is pretty good (and free). Direct download link:
http://www.planetmirror.com/pub/majorgeeks/drives/rescue.zip
You might also try DiskInvestigator (free):
http://www.theabsolute.net/sware/dskinv.html
PC Inspector (free) :
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm Didn't they believe it when install told them "ALL FILES WILL BE DISTROYED!, PROCEED ONLY IF YOU WANT TO DISTROY ALL FILES" ? Please post back with your results. Best
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Response Number 4
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Name: Derek
Date: September 22, 2004 at 16:04:56 Pacific
Subject: had win 98 installed xp |
Reply: (edit)I'm a bit surprised that they don't know whether it was an "Update W98 to XP CD" or a what it was. "Usually" that sort of message just means the "system" files will be deleted. I'm no XP expert but I know it has a file Search/Find feature. They could try searching *.doc or (much less likely) *.wri and see if what it lists includes any of the stuff that appears missing. Maybe it has moved to some different folder and they just need to find out which one. Derek.W
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Response Number 5
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Name: Derek
Date: September 22, 2004 at 16:09:24 Pacific
Subject: had win 98 installed xp |
Reply: (edit)Just noticed this bit:
"Like wordpad files i believe they said". We need to know "exactly" what they said. Maybe it was WordPerfect, in which case they should also search *.wps Sorry but it does appear to be a bit of a guessing game. Derek.W
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Response Number 6
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Name: Derek
Date: September 22, 2004 at 16:19:10 Pacific
Subject: had win 98 installed xp |
Reply: (edit)jubalsams
I overlapped with you as you probably guessed. That's another thing, we don't know exactly what the warning message actually said. IF it was what you gave in bold then with XP being much bigger than 98 I would have expected all to be overwritten. I appreciate that it is theoretically possible to detect traces but without FBI software I would have thought it hopeless. meatpuppetz
Do those searches I mentioned, I suspect it's your only real hope:
*.doc
*.wps In desperation try *.wri and *.txt too. Derek.W
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