Good, now first thing you do when you get home is unplug it and give it to a professional.
Don’t power it back up for any reason. 
[quote=“Locutus,post:17,topic:32254"”]
lol
ok i have 4 min to waste b4 i have to get some work done.
technically correct, but windows will install the same every time on a drive unless the drive has bad sectors. anddd the file will still be there unless he overwrote it. – which if he just did the install, hes most likely fine.
no offence, but what is your background?
[/quote]
Well yes, Windows installs over the same sectors since its the nazi operating system and needs to be first, but any other data that got written or partially written over the chunks where his file could have be just knocks off chances of finding it and being able to recover it.
Depending on how much he has written to the drive, I am voting the file is mostly a gone and you wont be able to recover it.
Just my $0.02
Also, forward all your POP3 gmail email messages to an account with IMAP and use that. No more downloading messages to your computer :). Or just use gmails 2gb+ of storage and leave a copy on the server and archive it.
well… I did have a very large amount of free space on drive C: before the format (and a bunch of installed software… unfortunitly though, most of which was on the D: drive)
only stuff installed on new XP install was AVG, sygate firewall, windows updates , firefox/thunderbird and logmein.com
edit: hopefully my saving grace, if this doesn’t work, is that I will somehow be able to get one of the past backups off of my other HDD
[quote=“Locutus,post:17,topic:32254"”]
no offence, but what is your background?
[/quote]
Whats yours?
[quote=“FormulaLS1,post:24,topic:32254"”]
Whats yours?
[/quote]
[COLOR=black]Something along the lines of working for governmental agencies and fortune 100 clients… Testifying in federal court as an expert for computer forensics. I get recruited daily by the largest consulting firms to come work for them. I’ve read just about every book in print on the topic of computer forensics/handheld forensics and about 1/2 of the books printed on cryptology. I write articles for major publications. I train global 1000 companies on computer forensics. I provide proven successful litigation strategy and expert advice on a daily basis. I have a 5 page curriculum vitae. Do I meet the requirements to take the lead in this thread?
The primary reason I asked Boxx is his posts are misleading. It’s kind of like if i starting saying I have a v8 in my Honda. Clearly that is an error. If someone posted in a technical thread and they needed immediate assistance and someone provided erroneous information, I would question their knowledge and call them out.
By all means. Any IT person can pick up a several books on my shelf and have an idea of how computer forensics works. But if you had a brain tumor, would you want a podiatrist conducting brain surgery? Exactly, you know they are both doctors, but they do completely different things. I respect IT personnel, but when someone provides flawed theory and logic to something I’m an expert in, I need to say something.
Ok back to saving the world. bbl
[/COLOR]
Just wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page with your skill set buddy 
[quote=“FormulaLS1,post:26,topic:32254"”]
Just wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page with your skill set buddy 
[/quote]
LOL
[quote=“Locutus,post:25,topic:32254"”]
[COLOR=black]Something along the lines of working for governmental agencies and fortune 100 clients… Testifying in federal court as an expert for computer forensics. I get recruited daily by the largest consulting firms to come work for them. I’ve read just about every book in print on the topic of computer forensics/handheld forensics and about 1/2 of the books printed on cryptology. I write articles for major publications. I train global 1000 companies on computer forensics. I provide proven successful litigation strategy and expert advice on a daily basis. I have a 5 page curriculum vitae. Do I meet the requirements to take the lead in this thread?
The primary reason I asked Boxx is his posts are misleading. It’s kind of like if i starting saying I have a v8 in my Honda. Clearly that is an error. If someone posted in a technical thread and they needed immediate assistance and someone provided erroneous information, I would question their knowledge and call them out.
By all means. Any IT person can pick up a several books on my shelf and have an idea of how computer forensics works. But if you had a brain tumor, would you want a podiatrist conducting brain surgery? Exactly, you know they are both doctors, but they do completely different things. I respect IT personnel, but when someone provides flawed theory and logic to something I’m an expert in, I need to say something.
Ok back to saving the world. bbl
[/COLOR]
[/quote]
lol reminds me of my cousin vinny when she testifies in court…haha
Well it is not misleading. It goes back to the basics of sectors on the drive and ones not fully getting written and still having data on them. Ya kno…basics that you learn from day one in IT classes.
Again, I am not expert. I don’t read books. I have lost my fair share of files and have experience and training on recovery and offering my 2 cents to someone who is looking for help. I do recover files successfully but I have found in experience that when you lose a file, writing data to the drive increases chances of a failed recovery, and a format even more so.
[quote=“Locutus,post:25,topic:32254"”]
Do I meet the requirements to take the lead in this thread?
[/quote]
not at all… lol
curiousity question, after a format and reinstall, whats the probability of recovering files that were not written over?
and do they still act like they are just “deleted”
if that makes sense
[quote=“ILCisDEAD,post:30,topic:32254"”]
not at all… lol
curiousity question, after a format and reinstall, whats the probability of recovering files that were not written over?
and do they still act like they are just “deleted”
if that makes sense
[/quote]
99% probability of file recovery
think about it like if you ripped out the table of contents of a book. All of the chapters are still there, you just need to know where to look for them
[quote=“Locutus,post:31,topic:32254"”]
99% probability of file recovery
think about it like if you ripped out the table of contents of a book. All of the chapters are still there, you just need to know where to look for them
[/quote]
thats what i assumed happened, but yet with no formal teaching I wasn’t sure
ugh, i had another question too… but i forgot, looks like i’ll just search through wikipedia later when i figure out what it was
So you are comparing deleting the MBR is the same as a format?
He didn’t say mbr, he said mft… The only way to ‘fix’ (not hack) an mft is to reformat afaik
You can get alot of the stuff back, if you get someone who knows what theyre doing and you really need it, you should be able to get it all… But its generally pricey… Locutus is correct on every point thus far, so id trust him
Indeed, that is why he is #1 on this board when it comes to this topic.