fixing parent problems

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Ok, well, the p’s (parents) have enough experience to view their
email, go on the internet, and download digital photos on our old sony
VIAO, but this morning, while I was sleeping, catastophy hit; when
booting up windows they were faced with a message saying, and I quote
my parents "something wrong with windows configuration". So, they
were prompted to insert their windows cd and instead inserted the VIAO
recovery CD (because that is the only one they have) and well, the
computer is back in 1998, which is ok because it works now, but my
mother has lost all her pictures.

So here is the question, would there be any way to pull the pictures
out of some sort of system recovery that I have overlooked besides the
regular windows system recovery or anything that I may have
overlooked, even though they haven’t made any backups in the last 3
years or any other safety precaution of the sort. I told them it was
hopeless, but just in case I may have overlooked something, I’m all
ears to the advice that you guys might have for me.

Thnx in advance for any responses!
Reply With Quote

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[Malke]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

pvphaneuf wrote:

> Ok, well, the p’s (parents) have enough experience to view their
> email, go on the internet, and download digital photos on our old sony
> VIAO, but this morning, while I was sleeping, catastophy hit; when
> booting up windows they were faced with a message saying, and I quote
> my parents "something wrong with windows configuration". So, they
> were prompted to insert their windows cd and instead inserted the VIAO
> recovery CD (because that is the only one they have) and well, the
> computer is back in 1998, which is ok because it works now, but my
> mother has lost all her pictures.
>
> So here is the question, would there be any way to pull the pictures
> out of some sort of system recovery that I have overlooked besides the
> regular windows system recovery or anything that I may have
> overlooked, even though they haven’t made any backups in the last 3
> years or any other safety precaution of the sort. I told them it was
> hopeless, but just in case I may have overlooked something, I’m all
> ears to the advice that you guys might have for me.

Only data recovery software can do this now. Have your parents do
*nothing* more on the affected machine. There is free data recovery
software available (Google for it) but I've never used it. I've
successfully used the quite expensive Easy Recovery Pro and have heard
good things about R-Studio. This sort of data recovery software is
expensive and takes time and skill to use properly. At this point,
unless you have experience doing data recovery and own the software to
do it, your parents should take the machine to a professional computer
repair shop (not their local equivalent of BigStoreUSA). If there is no
one in their area that can do the work, then have them contact a
professional data recovery firm such as Drive Savers
(www.drivesavers.com). Professional data recovery services are not
inexpensive, but only your parents can decide what the data is worth.
After this experience, either teach your parents how to back up or
suggest they hire a local professional to give them a lesson.

Good luck,

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

 

[kelly]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

or tell them if they get an error to leave it there and wake you up





"Malke" wrote:

> pvphaneuf wrote:
>
> > Ok, well, the ps (parents) have enough experience to view their
> > email, go on the internet, and download digital photos on our old sony
> > VIAO, but this morning, while I was sleeping, catastophy hit; when
> > booting up windows they were faced with a message saying, and I quote
> > my parents "something wrong with windows configuration". So, they
> > were prompted to insert their windows cd and instead inserted the VIAO
> > recovery CD (because that is the only one they have) and well, the
> > computer is back in 1998, which is ok because it works now, but my
> > mother has lost all her pictures.
> >
> > So here is the question, would there be any way to pull the pictures
> > out of some sort of system recovery that I have overlooked besides the
> > regular windows system recovery or anything that I may have
> > overlooked, even though they havent made any backups in the last 3
> > years or any other safety precaution of the sort. I told them it was
> > hopeless, but just in case I may have overlooked something, Im all
> > ears to the advice that you guys might have for me.
>
> Only data recovery software can do this now. Have your parents do
> *nothing* more on the affected machine. There is free data recovery
> software available (Google for it) but I've never used it. I've
> successfully used the quite expensive Easy Recovery Pro and have heard
> good things about R-Studio. This sort of data recovery software is
> expensive and takes time and skill to use properly. At this point,
> unless you have experience doing data recovery and own the software to
> do it, your parents should take the machine to a professional computer
> repair shop (not their local equivalent of BigStoreUSA). If there is no
> one in their area that can do the work, then have them contact a
> professional data recovery firm such as Drive Savers
> (www.drivesavers.com). Professional data recovery services are not
> inexpensive, but only your parents can decide what the data is worth.
> After this experience, either teach your parents how to back up or
> suggest they hire a local professional to give them a lesson.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Malke
> --
> Elephant Boy Computers
> www.elephantboycomputers.com
> "Don't Panic!"
> MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
>

 

[Stephen]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

pvphaneuf wrote:
>>

There is such a thing as data recovery - it is expensive but perhaps not
compared to the value of the data. If you are serious about data recovery
TURN OFF the computer with the problem then contact a company that does data
recovery such as:

http://www.datarecovery.net/

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

"pvphaneuf" <UseLinkToEmail@WindowsForumz.com> wrote in message
news:3_1716553_3fe34faeb158427d1428d3a7cf326f5f@windowsforumz.com...
> Ok, well, the p's (parents) have enough experience to view their
> email, go on the internet, and download digital photos on our old sony
> VIAO, but this morning, while I was sleeping, catastophy hit; when
> booting up windows they were faced with a message saying, and I quote
> my parents "something wrong with windows configuration". So, they
> were prompted to insert their windows cd and instead inserted the VIAO
> recovery CD (because that is the only one they have) and well, the
> computer is back in 1998, which is ok because it works now, but my
> mother has lost all her pictures.
>
> So here is the question, would there be any way to pull the pictures
> out of some sort of system recovery that I have overlooked besides the
> regular windows system recovery or anything that I may have
> overlooked, even though they haven't made any backups in the last 3
> years or any other safety precaution of the sort. I told them it was
> hopeless, but just in case I may have overlooked something, I'm all
> ears to the advice that you guys might have for me.
>
> Thnx in advance for any responses!
> Reply With Quote
>
> --
> Posted using the http://www.windowsforumz.com interface, at author's
request
> Articles individually checked for conformance to usenet standards
> Topic URL:
http://www.windowsforumz.com/General-Discussion-fixing-parent-problems-ftopict544003.html
> Visit Topic URL to contact author (reg. req'd). Report abuse:
http://www.windowsforumz.com/eform.php?p=1716553

I think your case is hopeless. It's probably time for you to
reduce the backup interval from three years to seven days,
using an external hard disk in a USB case. They cost $100.00
or less and are extremely simple to use.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

"pvphaneuf" wrote:
> Ok, well, the p's (parents) have enough experience to view
> their email, go on the internet, and download digital photos
> on our old sony VIAO, but this morning, while I was sleeping,
> catastophy hit; when booting up windows they were faced with a
> message saying, and I quote my parents "something wrong with
> windows configuration". So, they were prompted to insert their
> windows cd and instead inserted the VIAO recovery CD (because
> that is the only one they have) and well, the computer is back
> in 1998, which is ok because it works now, but my mother has
> lost all her pictures.
>
> So here is the question, would there be any way to pull the
> pictures out of some sort of system recovery that I have
> overlooked besides the regular windows system recovery or
> anything that I may have overlooked, even though they haven't
> made any backups in the last 3 years or any other safety
> precaution of the sort. I told them it was hopeless, but just
> in case I may have overlooked something, I'm all ears to the
> advice that you guys might have for me.
>
> Thnx in advance for any responses!
> Reply With Quote

well, I was able to get all kinds of software through such as the
OnTrack Uber-Expensive and with that I was able to get everything they
needed off the D drive (which is NFTS, so the recovery quatilty was
very good), but it had problems picking up anything on the C drive
which is FAT32 (and from what I’ve heard has less then good recovery
quality) so I tried a free distrobution called PC Inspector which has
been able to find all lost data in a large array of *cluster* files:
many have now become corrupted, though, I’m still able to pick some
out. Thanx for all the advice though, and I’ve already talked to them
about getting an external harddrive; I’ve got one that I use for my
laptop and I was able to demonstrate the ease of use in backing up
pics and other parent stuff.

Though, here is another question; why would a company put two formats
on different logical partition for windows (such as my FAT32 and
NFTS)?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

"pvphaneuf" wrote:
> well, I was able to get all kinds of software through such as
> the OnTrack Uber-Expensive and with that I was able to get
> everything they needed off the D drive (which is NFTS, so the
> recovery quatilty was very good), but it had problems picking
> up anything on the C drive which is FAT32 (and from what I've
> heard has less then good recovery quality) so I tried a free
> distrobution called PC Inspector which has been able to find
> all lost data in a large array of *cluster* files: many have
> now become corrupted, though, I'm still able to pick some out.
> Thanx for all the advice though, and I've already talked to
> them about getting an external harddrive; I've got one that I
> use for my laptop and I was able to demonstrate the ease of
> use in backing up pics and other parent stuff.
>
> Though, here is another question; why would a company put two
> formats on different logical partition for windows (such as my
> FAT32 and NFTS)?

Oh yeah, were not in the US right now, we are in Belgium (some small
country right above France and Germany, which was completed invaded in
WWII) but anyways, we couldn’t get to BigStoreUSA even if we wanted
to... hahahahha. I miss Walmart though