urgent help needed please .recovering deleted files

hi all i need some urgent help please i had several files inside folders on my desktop and i moved them on to a portable usb hard drive by selecting the files and clicking send to , and thought all was ok but today i had to reinstall windows xp home edition as it failed to load correctly and when i have plugged in the usb hard drive to get my documents back on to my laptop they were not showing on the portable hard drive .

does anybody know how if possible i can get these files back as i desperately need the documents that were in them

thanks in advance

 

As you have re-installed th eOS there is a chance that you have written over the data. It will also depend on the type of format that you did. There may be some paid software that might recover some of your data but I wouldnt gaurentee it.

I know its no consolation now but this is why data backups are essential. I havent had any experience of "undeleting" stuff, but Im sure some of the other regulars have.

 

thanks for your help i will have a look on the internet and see if i can find some software that will help

 

hi,

I don't know about 'Send To' as I usually just drag and drop but drag and drop sometimes does the same thing. Instead of copying the files it makes short cuts to them. You just have to check what happened when you move files and make sure they really copied or moved as you intended.

Jim

 

Try powerdatarecovery installed on the laptop and see if it finds any of the files on the USB flash. Maybe the files actually were sent over to the flash but the laptop won't see them without help?

If that doesn't work you can try it with the desktop HD attached to the laptop by way of USB cable to see if anything is recoverable from the HD.