File Recovery Tool

After a recent motherboard crash, I built a new PC from scratch and installed a new 80GB WD hard drive. I then installed XP and migrated a large amount of accumulated files, MP3s, JPGs, MPEGS, ....from multiple drives to the new drive. I suspected a virus was the cause of the crash, but it now appears that the IDE controller died on the original MB, as neither Norton, Mcafee or PC-Cillin found anything other than a few trojans that had been in files downloaded from Morpheus over a year ago.

I had been running Norton all along and it did not catch the trojans, Mcafee did. So I dumped Norton and started using Mcafee. I set it to auto scan and clean or delete any virus files. One day I get home and it has found and deleted 13 files including several files that appeared to be system files. I suspected they were the FATS and bingo I was right.

I ran a few recovery tools and I got the entire directory structures back, but most of the jpegs, mp3s mpegs are gone. The wierd thing is EVERY SINGLE program file is intact, such as games, corel, windows...Only the stuff I pulled from the net is gone. Several tools I tried show the files are these, but the recovery process is tedious or the programs that appear to be able to do a thorough recovery are $80-$90. I don't mind buying something if it is worth it.

Any suggestions on something a moderately knowledgeable person can use to recover the files?

 

well, there is a old dos tool called undelete that used to work occasionally.

unfortunately, the problem u have, is if your os is on the partition with the deleted data, it will probably have over-written some or maybe all of those sectors with the deleted data on. unless the fat points to particular sectors, the os will take them as free space, and just overwrite them.

also have a look on your hdd's manufactor's web site for any tools that might include data recovery. overwise, i suggest you look at how important the data lost was, and calculate the cost of data recovery - baring in mind, if the data's been over written its lost for ever

 

I always thought this was a nice one.

http://www.lc-tech.com/Filerecovery.htm















(Tim or Jim: I didn't see it in mg database, so if it is there just change the link)

 

Thanks

I tried the basic DOS undelete-it did not find much. From what I understand of it, it pretty much relied on the FAT table for its info and I lost the FAT table. I tried the redundant tables on the drive and one was 40% intact and that one is how I recovered most of the files I got back.

Also, as soon as I knew of the issue, I pulled the drive offline figuring I would leave it alone until I had time to mess with it, so little if anything is written over. I tried the link for the Drive Rescue tool, but it says it is no longer available.

I will take a look at the other tool mentioned.

Thanks!!!

 

File Scavenger (available here) is a good tool.

I used PC Inspector File Recovery on mine, it worked good. No idea where to get it, tho.

 

I suggest datarecoverywizard. DataRecoveryWizard ensures safe and precise
file recovery against numerous threats like accidental file deletion and
disk formatting and so on.

For more detail: http://www.easeus.com/

 

It never ceases to amaze me that someone can dig up old threads like this one.

This thread is nearly 3 years old, if you didn't notice.

 

oh, sorry, i just ignored the time.

 

You never know, they might still be trying to recover their files?