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Is it possible to recover any information from a formatted hard drive?
My friend sent her PC back to Time Computers this week to be upraded & for some unknown reason, when she got it back yesterday, they had formatted the existing hard drive, despite the fact it was only to be tranferred from the existing case to the new one. No new software was due to be added to this machine only hardware. She was also told that they would not be touching the hard drive apart from to transfer it.
She was & still is using Windows 98. Which she had to reinstall last night.
Can anything be done to recover any of the deleted files?
My friend sent her PC back to Time Computers this week to be upraded & for some unknown reason, when she got it back yesterday, they had formatted the existing hard drive, despite the fact it was only to be tranferred from the existing case to the new one. No new software was due to be added to this machine only hardware. She was also told that they would not be touching the hard drive apart from to transfer it.
She was & still is using Windows 98. Which she had to reinstall last night.
Can anything be done to recover any of the deleted files?
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Rob what are you talking about, all PCs get dusty, mines probably full of all sorts of crap right now, and coated with a layer of dust, because the dust, flies, muck, fluff and anything else is brought in through either the PSU fans or the Case fans, if there is no dust, there is either no air flow, or your using dust filters, which are usually expensive for what they are, reduce air flow considerably and increase noise.
A healthy PC needs cleaning out every once in a while to get all the dust and crap out of it, it's a sign that things are healthy!
A healthy PC needs cleaning out every once in a while to get all the dust and crap out of it, it's a sign that things are healthy!
No, I don't it like that, what I meant is "there shouldn't be dust in there" from a POV that it's hard to collect dust in it. I was average for years, my PB computer was at ground level with the standard fans. I hasn't collected ANY dust though, I was just wondering how it got in there. It probably indicates a problem, IE, lack of circulation.
[Turbonutter] wrote:
> You have dust on a 20gb hard drive? That's worrying. This 3gb is very
> old and it hasn't got any dust on it. You really shouldn't get dust
> inside a PC much at all.
I know it's easy to say you shouldn't get dust in a PC but my friend, like the majority of PC owners, is just an "average" user. She wouldn't have the first clue about servicing a PC & would be scared to death to rip off the cover & look inside it.
At the end of the day like you've said the data has been wiped. She seems fairly happy with her compensation from Time. She is getting some other software other than just Windows XP. The compensation deal is worth about £400 all together, so she said. I'll believe when I see what she get from Time.
Thanks to all of you for replying.
> You have dust on a 20gb hard drive? That's worrying. This 3gb is very
> old and it hasn't got any dust on it. You really shouldn't get dust
> inside a PC much at all.
I know it's easy to say you shouldn't get dust in a PC but my friend, like the majority of PC owners, is just an "average" user. She wouldn't have the first clue about servicing a PC & would be scared to death to rip off the cover & look inside it.
At the end of the day like you've said the data has been wiped. She seems fairly happy with her compensation from Time. She is getting some other software other than just Windows XP. The compensation deal is worth about £400 all together, so she said. I'll believe when I see what she get from Time.
Thanks to all of you for replying.
The best thing is, the data is gone now, so you could say there was whatever the hell you like on there.
You have dust on a 20gb hard drive? That's worrying. This 3gb is very old and it hasn't got any dust on it. You really shouldn't get dust inside a PC much at all.
Maybe they formatted it as a standard procedure? Not even bothering to check if your friend had allowed this.
It's just that when you put a new motherboard in, windows can sometimes throw a bit of a tantrum, finding new things. Sometimes it's less trouble to format the hard drive.
BUT that still isn't an excuse for what they did. If they wanted to format it, they should have checked first. That could have been very important data (for all I know, it might have been) and accepting a modem and Windows XP worth about £50 to them is terrible. They should have offered much more than that.
I say take it further.
It's just that when you put a new motherboard in, windows can sometimes throw a bit of a tantrum, finding new things. Sometimes it's less trouble to format the hard drive.
BUT that still isn't an excuse for what they did. If they wanted to format it, they should have checked first. That could have been very important data (for all I know, it might have been) and accepting a modem and Windows XP worth about £50 to them is terrible. They should have offered much more than that.
I say take it further.
It's the same hard drive - I think.
It's exactly the same size in Gb (20), it was also still coated in dust like the other original components that were transfered over.
It is possible it could be a different hard drive but without knowing the serial number, & the fact it's not my PC, I can't check.
The hard drive that is in the PC is certainly not new.
There's certainly more evidence pointing to it being the same hard drive rather than a different one.
It's exactly the same size in Gb (20), it was also still coated in dust like the other original components that were transfered over.
It is possible it could be a different hard drive but without knowing the serial number, & the fact it's not my PC, I can't check.
The hard drive that is in the PC is certainly not new.
There's certainly more evidence pointing to it being the same hard drive rather than a different one.
And your sure its not a new hard drive they put in by mistake??? And they've just got crossed wires about it being formatted???
I still can't believe Time managed to format the hard drive aswell. My friend even stated quite clearly on her PC that under no circumstances should the contents of the hard drive be touched.
Sadly everything on her hard drive is now lost, I tried last night to see if anything could be done to recover the deleted files.
I've been told before Time were not very good and after seeing what a complete bodge they made of my friends computer I shall never be using them.
All she was having done was a new ATX case, motherboard, 1700XP processor, ram & graphics card. The rest was being transferred from her old PC to the new one. How the hell they managed to format the hard drive is beyond belief.
They even tried to fob her off with a crap excuse that there was a 'corrupt' programme on her PC & they had to format it. (Textbook stuff)
Sadly everything on her hard drive is now lost, I tried last night to see if anything could be done to recover the deleted files.
I've been told before Time were not very good and after seeing what a complete bodge they made of my friends computer I shall never be using them.
All she was having done was a new ATX case, motherboard, 1700XP processor, ram & graphics card. The rest was being transferred from her old PC to the new one. How the hell they managed to format the hard drive is beyond belief.
They even tried to fob her off with a crap excuse that there was a 'corrupt' programme on her PC & they had to format it. (Textbook stuff)
[Turbonutter] wrote:
> That's unique data, it's worth thousands of pounds at least. I had a
> chat with my solicitor when our last computer was stolen, y'see. I
> suggest you have a word with yours'.
No kidding.
I really do find Time's behaviour unbelievable. Not everyone knows exactly what's going on in their PC and companies like Time just seem to take advantage of this. For the vast majority of upgrades there is no need to even /touch/ the hard drive; and even if you're sticking an extra drive in then it's a matter of jumpers on the driver and BIOS settings: not indiscriminate use of the format command.
It really is quite difficult to delete all the data on a drive. If you're working with multiple partitions then you can get confused easily enough: but first, how likely are partitions on a Time machine, and second, professionals are PAID not to make silly mistakes like this. Even if they did make a mistake then it's standard practice to isolate the drive and try to recover the data: not particularly difficult unless the data has been overwritten.
It really goes to show that if you have a problem that you can't fix yourself then it's best to take your hardware to an independent technician. Your PC is much less likely to fall foul of bureaucratic incompetence when the reputation of one man/small company is at stake.
> That's unique data, it's worth thousands of pounds at least. I had a
> chat with my solicitor when our last computer was stolen, y'see. I
> suggest you have a word with yours'.
No kidding.
I really do find Time's behaviour unbelievable. Not everyone knows exactly what's going on in their PC and companies like Time just seem to take advantage of this. For the vast majority of upgrades there is no need to even /touch/ the hard drive; and even if you're sticking an extra drive in then it's a matter of jumpers on the driver and BIOS settings: not indiscriminate use of the format command.
It really is quite difficult to delete all the data on a drive. If you're working with multiple partitions then you can get confused easily enough: but first, how likely are partitions on a Time machine, and second, professionals are PAID not to make silly mistakes like this. Even if they did make a mistake then it's standard practice to isolate the drive and try to recover the data: not particularly difficult unless the data has been overwritten.
It really goes to show that if you have a problem that you can't fix yourself then it's best to take your hardware to an independent technician. Your PC is much less likely to fall foul of bureaucratic incompetence when the reputation of one man/small company is at stake.
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