Data Recovery Help

Hi, I am using Windows 98, and the other day my computer froze. When I rebooted, windows ran Scandisk and forced me to restore an old copy of my registry before entering Windows.

When I got in to Windows, almost everything on my Desktop (shortcuts, files, etc) was gone. The only things there on my Desktop was a shortcut to one program, along with MyComputer, Recycle Bin and Interner Explorer. Also, when I clicked on the Start Menu, and then Programs, every shortcut in side Programs was gone (The Programs Menu was empty.)

My question: Is there any way to restore the lost data and Program menu shortcuts to the exact state and location as before the crash?

I assumed the answer to this was No. So I slaved the hard drive to another computer and ran PC Inspector File Recovery and I think I was able to save copies of most of my files and shortcuts to another hard drive (but not in the orginal state it was in).

After saving copies of the lost files to another drive, I ran Disk Defragmenter and then ran the Recovery Software again hoping it would find more files. But this time the software did not find any of the files that it previously displayed as recoverable. Does anyone know the reason for this? Is there a way to Undo the changes done by Disk Defragmenter?

Sorry for the long post, and Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Hello turbo, welcome to Major Geeks.

To answer your second question first.
The file descriptors (what is it, where is it etc) are found in two places. Firstly in the header of the file itself and of course end of file markers. Secondly in an index for the disk, called a File Allocation Table (FAT). Windows, explorer and normal programs such as defrag look in this table for their information on files. Deleting a file simply deleted its reference in the index (FAT), so the file becomes invisible to normal programs such as explorer and defrag. The space it occupied is regarded as free space and other programs may use it or defrag may move things into that space.
Recovery programs read the information in the headers and end of file markers. Where no other program has overwritten the file referred to they can then trace and recover it and restore the reference in the index(FAT).

So no, - once the files have been overwritten by defrag moving things about they can't be recoverd by normal methods.

But surely it is quicker to reset a few shortcuts than mess about trying to recover them . You say you have recovered you data. That's the main thing.

Studio T