HELP!! Windows reverted to feb.

I turned on the computer after my cmos battery failed and windows came up with a message stating that it had to be activated. I went through the procedure and everything booted up fine. One big problem. My Outlook 2003 file and Quickbooks file lost all data past the end of Feb 2004. I tried to restore my quickbooks backup, but the backup file was not recognised. I have no clue what happened. The computer even went back to an old home page for Internet explorer. The computer date and time is accurate. Any help would be appreciated

 

Just moving this one back to the top.

Not sure what you need to do but for now, the less you do, the more likely it is that you can get your data back.

 

Did you change the system date and time in BIOS or through Windows?

Johanna

 

Dlary--As Johanna has suggested, when you change the battery, you often have to reset the time through the BIOS.
Do you know how to access your BIOS? If not, tell us what brand PC you use.
However if the files are not on the PC, I wonder.

 

I changed the time in windows, but that updates the BIOS. The files are still there. I recovered the Quickbooks using a backup file (I had to first reinstall the latest version as the computer had reverted to an earlier version). The Outlook PST file is still there, but messages past the end of Feb are gone. It seems like the computer reverted to what existed as of the end of Feb. I had one person suggest it might have something to do with the windows user. It might think the current logon is something as of the end of feb.

Thanks for your help. This is a new one for me.

 

Dlary,

Actually, you have to change the time and date in your BIOS. If you do it in windows, it will revert to the bios time.

Boot your computer and hit the delete key to get into your BIOS. Some computers use F2, others use other keys. The boot screen should say at one point what key to use to get into setup. There in the BIOS you will find a screen for setting your time and date. Save your changes and reboot. This should solve your problem.

 

The problem is that if you boot the computer into Windows w/o changing the BIOS time/date, sometimes you lose all the time stamped data (like History files, for example) back to the date that the BIOS said when Windows booted. The info is still there, Windows just can't "see" it. Since it doesn't "see" it, it may start overwriting the newly discovered "free space ". Good rule of thumb- if you have a bad checksum error, or CMOS problem, set the BIOS BEFORE you boot into Windows. Not sure what you'll be able to recover, but I suggest a better system for backups, from now on. You can buy storage units that plug into a USB port, which is great for portability and for back up insurance.


Johanna