Installed printer os deletes everything from now to 2 years back

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ravensharpless

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We just got a new printer for my moms computer. This computer is a sony vaio that we got in 2005, its windows xp because she never wanted me to update it or re install windows. We put the printer in it and installed the disc but then it deleted everything from now to 2 years back. I don't think it's system restore, it might be a virus. I want to know your guys thoughts on this because this is important info for her work and i cant think of anything.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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I want to know your guys thoughts on this because this is important info for her work and i cant think of anything.

This is when you reinstall the OS and applications, and bring up the important stuff from the backup.
Oh, wait...
 
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ravensharpless

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Yep. The recovery only went back to the 28th and we installed the printer on the 24th.
 
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lon0

lon0

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Ok, so you're saying that it isn't a system restore. What has made you come to this conclusion?
Is there any data at all within your My Documents/Pictures etc. Do you have the Sample Pictures etc?

What printer driver was it you were trying to install from, a printed official CD? Which company and printer?
You also say the printer 'OS', what does it say exactly on the CD? Or are you referencing that it was the 'os' which deleted everything?

Also, you say no updates, was windows automatic update turned off since installation, or did you just never upgrade to a newer operating system e.g. Vista, 7.
 
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ravensharpless

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"Ok, so you're saying that it isn't a system restore. What has made you come to this conclusion?
Is there any data at all within your My Documents/Pictures etc. Do you have the Sample Pictures etc?"

I wasn't present for the data being lost so some of the info is coming from my moms knowledge. I don't know if the printer drivers made it go back to a restore point or not but i do know this. I plugged the printer in and it installed the drivers just fine. Later she installs the cd for the software but then she asks me to see something because the icons that where on the desktop are gone, but due to other icons being put there there is evidence that they were there. We look for the software in the program files but it is completely gone. I go and re install it. Later i find out that when the software was removed pictures and files were also.

"What printer driver was it you were trying to install from, a printed official CD? Which company and printer?
You also say the printer 'OS', what does it say exactly on the CD? Or are you referencing that it was the 'os' which deleted everything?"

The driver was originally from the windows driver manager but then the whole package was installed from the cd afterwards. The printer is a Cannon MX892 and i was referring to the OS windows xp.

"Also, you say no updates, was windows automatic update turned off since installation, or did you just never upgrade to a newer operating system e.g. Vista, 7."

The windows update is set to automatic. And the update i was referring to was to a new OS.

Some other stuff is that she hibernates it in the daytime and from what i remember she hibernated it right after she installed the cd and it was then that she turned it on and she noticed that the icons were missing. One other thing, she just re registered the avast a few days before because the subscription ran out (avast free) and it was asking to be re registered again, and the software version was an older one. If i can find a long of windows updates maybe that'll help.
 
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lon0

lon0

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It does sound like a Restore to me, but I know what you are going through as you weren't present for all of it. As the data has been removed it may be a bit of a waste of your time searching for log files. I would recommend using Everything: http://www.voidtools.com/ and search for a filename that you knew was there before the deletion just to make sure that the data hasn't been moved somewhere.

If that fails then you can always try recuva: http://www.piriform.com/recuva select the deep scan option (it can take ages) and see what you can get back! Good luck
 
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ravensharpless

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So just to update we figured out the problem. A friend of mine installed a new hard drive a few years back because we suspected the hard drive was going out. We went and got a new hard drive and cloned the image onto it. The thing is he had put both hard drives in the computer and just changed the hard drive priority in the bios. So when we got the printer it had a problem that it had before with the last printer that if the printer was on the computer wouldn't get past post. So i went into the bios to change the boot priority to see if that would help but it didn't change anything. It would still freeze at post as usual so a said screw it because my friend fixed it before and ill just have him do it again.I didn't change the bios back before because it would start up into windows and that said to me that it was working fine. I didn't know that there was a second hard drive in there with the original image from 2 years ago. So i switched it back and now we have our stuff back. So problem solved.
 
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