Is Data Lost with Windows Me Restore?

Let me first apologize that my information is vague but I'm giving it my best shot. My son-in-law had severe problems on his PC earlier tonight and, if I understand him correctly, he used a restore disk to restore the operating system (Windows Me). He assumed that he would be warned somewhere along the way if the restore process would result in loss of data - but, no such warning appeared...so, he continued on. Once it was restored, it appeared that none of his previously existing data files remained - including over 2 years of digital photos. Is his data, in fact gone, or is there hope?

Thanks in adance for your help.

Ralph

 

Not all manufacturer's Restore CD has the option to just reinstall windows. The default operation for some of these is to wipe the drive clean, then install windows and software, or copy an image to the drive, overwriting everything on it.
BTW, your friend needs to go to windows update 3 to 5 times to get all the update for ME.

 

Hello Ralph,

There are data recovery sevices that can be tried, don't know how expensive that would be. Even then, if the previous data's position on the hard drive has been overwritten, the old data is truely gone. So if this option is tried, don't use the computer in the meantime.

Your son-in-law is a poster child for bad computer practices - no backup strategy, a beginning: http://langa.com/backups/backups(7).htm

Regards - Charles

 

Thanks Mark and Charles for your responses. Another point I should have mentioned is that my son-in-law indicated that the restore process only took about 15 minutes. Does that lessen the chances that the data was actually erased?

Ralph

 

Hi Ralph,

I think its all there, or most of it anyway. So data recovery is a viable option, the issue being the availabilty of that kind of service and expense.

Regards - Charles