Finding Lost/Deleted Files after Factory Reset

[SingingC8]

  My computer has been acting a little weird lately and I've tried the system restore quite a few times, so a friend suggested I do a factory reset. So I saved my most important files on Dell Remote Access and Reset my computer. Upon reinstalling Dell Remote Access to my computer my files have mysteriously vanished. I am wondering if there is a low, LOW cost way or an absolutely free (*points to sell* Broke college student!) way to find the files I lost, on my computer somewhere. The ones I need most are just Notepad files of songs I've written out that I have no backups of. They are extremely important to me. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thank you,
Caitlin

[patio]

Your data is gone after a re-install....sorry.

Unless you want to take it to a data recovery specialist for approx 150 Bucks an hour...U.S. $

[SingingC8]

I'm wondering if that is true. I've gone to multiple sights where they've said there is a way to get my files back through safe mode, but no one goes into detail on how to do this.

[Spoiler]

When you do a factory reinstall it wipes your computer clean and then installs a fresh new copy of windows. This process over writes everything on your machine. This also means that anything like your docs and pictures have been written over.

What was on your computer is gone unless you want to pay big money to have a company try to recover little bits and pieces of what maybe left in the free space on your hard drive.

Your data is gone. It's an ex-parrot.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vuW6tQ0218

[Vaseline]

Don't know anything about Dell Remote Access other than it states it's no longer offered. If you have uploaded to this service, then contact their support. If you check http://www.dellremoteaccess.com/ there is a new alternative. Again, I don't know but possibly this service has taken over DRA and just needs you to install this new software to gain access.

As for lost files and factory reset. There is the possibility to get some information back but the more you use the PC and save data to it the less likely that is.

http://www.active-undelete.com/
http://www.livecd.com/

Youtube will possibly help you use these tools, LiveCD being a good first choice to try and remember download to a friends PC and use the bootable versions as any new data written to your pc may overwrite the stuff you need.

There's also Hiren's BootCD if you'd like to look for that.

A factory reset requires partitions (usually) so if you do have partitions you may have C & D drives as well as a hidden restore partition. The Factory Reset will only restore to C leaving D if exists alone.

Anyway, always good to backup to external and incase of text or photos of importance - print

Nah! That Parrot's just sleeping.... 

[2x3i5x]

if you want a backup solution in the cloud, I'd go with adrive.com[/url. 50 GB of storage space for free users and I think they keep your files like forever. I checked my account recently and something I stuck there almost half a year ago still existed