computer reverted back to an earlier time.

[JHADD]

A friends computer as reverted back to an earlier time possibly when the computer was first booted up, the reason i think this is because the free software that comes with computes like norton anti virus request installing.
Originally her brother gave her this computer so i dont know the full history of the computer, but its lost al her personal data.
This is a hewllet packard computer.
O/S Vista home premium. 32-bit
AMD Athlon (tm)64 bit processor
RAM 1918mb
Ive thought of running the hP recovery partition but the bar indicating the amount of storage used is coloured red were it is normally blue.
Thanks for any help jhadd

[truenorth]

If the process of "going back to an earlier time" was executed through the "system restore points" the data should not have been lost. So  i am suspicious that that was the actual process used. However to assist you to try and determine what was done and possibly retrieve the personal data i am linking to a site that details the "restore points" process when done correctly and also tells you how to come forward with the recovery.
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/software/3230706/how-to-create-and-manage-system-restore-points/
If after reading the article and perhaps trying the process related you have further questions please come back,truenorth

[patio]

The PC will not "revert to an earlier" time without User intervention...it simply doesn't happen that way...

Tell your friend they need to explain what exactly they have done so you can take the proper corrective steps.

I run into this fixing people's PC's all the time and they say "it just happened"...i take the approach if you can't say what's been done ask someone else to assist in fixing it...normally right about then they explain what transpired.

Never mind the RAM comment...i misread...

Best of Luck.

[JHADD]

Ive run the recovery partition on this computer i backed the files up to an external hard disk.
There are to folders in the backup files on the external hard disk, i click on one it started to look for files then came up with an error message and stopped searching for files when i click on it again nothing happens.
I click on the  second one i get the message unable to open FWB files apparently this is a Hewlet Packard extension ive looked on their site without any succes.
Thanks for any help jhadd

[Rustys]

The FWB file type is primarily associated with 'FileWrangler' by CursorArts Company.