Emergency, please help!

[MikeMcL]

Long Story short, my wife thought it would be funny to delete all my client files off BOTH hard drives for april fools day. Her plan was to copy them onto a network drive, but she cancelled the copy because "it was gonna take too long"

She is on the verge of death, and I am super pisstoff. My whole portflio, and about $1100 worth of unfulfilled orders for clients. all I have is my Smugmug galleries to fall back on.

Is there any way in windows to recover all this from 2 days ago? If i regress the system with system restore, will I get documents back? Supposedly the docs aren't really gone till they are overwritten... is that true?

Please save her life.

[bieber]

System restore won't recover the files, an undelete utility may. DON'T DO ANYTHING THAT WRITES DATA TO THE DRIVE IF YOU CAN HELP IT. I haven't used Windows in ages, so just hold on a little longer and someone with more experience can point you to a decent undelete program. Also, I very strongly suggest DVD backup henceforth.

[ZekaG]

If the OS is still on the hard drive, try this one: http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

It saved my once! Good luck.

[dickbanks]

right click on the recycle bin and choose restore file.
Dick

[th3r0m]

Not sure about which programs would be best, but when you download, download it to a USB if possible to avoid any writing to the hard drive. You should have no problem running these programs from USB, at least I would not think anyways.

[Bobster]

http://www.recovermyfiles.com/ (saved my butt more than once, and the last time was on Sat with 6GB of RAW pics that screwed up when trying to copy to my imagetank!) well worth the money!

[Converge]

As previously stated, Windows System Restore WILL NOT restore deleted user created files. It only effects changes to drivers or the registry.

Your only option would be to use a recovery program as previously posted.

Then password protect your computer.

[MikeMcL]

Thanks for all the help. The recycle bin thing is no good, she dumped that too. I will give this a try. any other tips are appreciated.

[DocFrankenstein]

Wow... april fools indeed!

There are utilities that restore erased data. I never had to experience them.

My advice is to turn that computer off and then run the utility off another computer.

On the bright side... Most of april fool days just blend into each other. This one you'll remember.

[JaGWiRE]

1 word
Why?

[MikeMcL]

1 word
Why?

lol that is what i kept repeating while i was beating her. I have been able to recover about 25% so far, but it is all mixed together, and it is a disaster. Sooo many corrupt files.

[JaGWiRE]

lol that is what i kept repeating while i was beating her. I have been able to recover about 25% so far, but it is all mixed together, and it is a disaster. Sooo many corrupt files.
2 words
You're kidding?

[MikeMcL]

Nah I didn't hit her... yet.

I am really mad. there is something about a person messing with your crap that gives you an icky, violated feeling. I am really mad about all this, but I should recover by using the pics at smugmug to filfill the orders. Ill have to order about $300 worth of "backup discs" from them to get my pics back. That just means I lost all the raws and the layered .psd files that i used to make the collage pages.

Im on a rant now. There will be alot more customers, eventually I will forget about this... and it's illegal to kill your wife for the insurance miney so I'll just have to move on.

Thanks for the help guys. I was able to get a bunch back, and It was a good learning experience anyways.

[Actionphotog]

If you need alibi I'm here for you :)

I have an IOGEAR (http://www.iogear.com/main.php?loc=product&Item=GHD335C320&name=COMBO%203.5)
That I back all work files on.
I have it setup so all I do is upload from card to computer working Folder and then it the button on the front of the IOGEAR and it backup the files.
Its very easy to use. If you can also set up the drive with real names i.e. Weddings, portraits etc.
This way if computer goes boom or Wife plays a not so funny April fools joke the files are backed up.

[poloman]

Surely this is your april fools joke on us :)
If not


KILL HER!

[vwpilot]

While that was pretty foolish of her to try such a thing, I only have the question of how in the world could you NOT have a backup of your files? Sorry to say, but its as much your fault you are in this position as your wife's.

I hope you get your files back, and if you do, BACK THEM UP.

[DocFrankenstein]

While that was pretty foolish of her to try such a thing, I only have the question of how in the world could you NOT have a backup of your files? Sorry to say, but its as much your fault you are in this position as your wife's.

I hope you get your files back, and if you do, BACK THEM UP.
Didn't he say BOTH harddrives? Even made the letters capital.


Long Story short, my wife thought it would be funny to delete all my client files off BOTH hard drives for april fools day.

[primoz]

That's why DVD is pretty cool thing ;) I have 2 backup hard drives, plus servers work drive and I still always make 3 copies of each cd/dvd. Maybe I'm paranoid, but unfortunately I'm in this kind of business too long to rely on hard drives only... and/or on only one cd/dvd.
PS: I still didn't figure out what the hack is with people to mess with stuff like this. I mean april fools day is one thing, messing with stuff which might hurt people is something completely different.

[banana]

click on wife, press delete.

[JaGWiRE]

I'll make a useful post to this thread.
There is probably some pricy software you can get that will attempt to recover some data.
Hope is not lost, you CAN recover those photos, but it will be a hard decision to make, it will be timely, and costly, so you have to decide. There are places you can send hard drives which have even been reformatted, and usually get 99% of the data back.

[yoyoboy]

I've accidently deleted files before, and had great success with data rescue 2. http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue_info.php
Just make sure you download it to a separate drive so that it won't overwrite any of the deleted files
Good luck!

[XPHALCON]

[quote=MikeMcL;2973723]Long Story short, my wife thought it would be funny to delete all my client files off BOTH hard drives for april fools day.

Something's not right here, this is not even funny in the slightest way. I think your wife could use some professional help.

[poloman]

If you save your files only to drives on the same system you are exposed to loss from:
Fire
Theft
ERASURE!!!
Viral Invasion (some viruses wipe everything)

Some form of off site storage is a good Idea.
If you use DVD make sure you use archival quality media. The best is gold. $3 ea

[MikeMcL]

click on wife, press delete.
HAHA this is very funny. ever since the dreaded event took place she has been trying to make light of it by joking about deleting the dishes, laundry, etc... I told her that if she wasnt careful, i was gonna delete her face.

I ended up using PC inspector file recovery mentioned on the first page and it worked fairly well. The problem is that I didnt realize the file missing for a bit and re-used some of the memory sectors, and that thrashed many of the otherwise recoverable pics.

I think this thread has been used up quite enough, and while it is funny, I dont think it is fair to keep and "emergency" thread at the top of the list when it is no longer an emergency... So I am locking it to help those who may have a serious issue at hand.

Thanks.

[MikeMcL]

Hmmm. "lock thread" isnt in the thread tools. Where do i find the lock thread butti, please help.

[DocFrankenstein]

Hmmm. "lock thread" isnt in the thread tools. Where do i find the lock thread butti, please help.
It's in the "mod's controls" tab.

[KirkHMB]

My last PC had a program called GoBack, review below. Never used it to restore data, but did fix a few aborted installs and other foul ups. Don't know if it is still around, and still a viable option, but it sounds like it could help you (come next April 1)

http://www.hallogram.com/goback/

[JaGWiRE]

My last PC had a program called GoBack, review below. Never used it to restore data, but did fix a few aborted installs and other foul ups. Don't know if it is still around, and still a viable option, but it sounds like it could help you (come next April 1)

http://www.hallogram.com/goback/

LOL. I bet his wife will NEVER play an April Fools joke again on him, not even a insignificant one.

[August 15 Photography]

Well not that it will help right now, but Being a Mac user myself I would reccomend buying a Mac loaded with Leopard when it comes out. It has a nifty little feature called Time Machine. Check it out http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/timemachine.html

[vwpilot]

Didn't he say BOTH harddrives? Even made the letters capital.

Thats not a backup. A backup is a true backup, either hdds that are completely separate from the system and/or (preferably and) DVD/CDs that are stored somewhere and cannot be altered.

Personally, I have images stored locally on my machine (the last years worth), on externall hdds (all files) that are attached to machine but not kept on (so they cant be accidentally altered or prone to a virus), another set of hdds kept offsite (all files), and on DVDs stored in a safe (all files).

That way I have multiple backups, multiple types and in multiple places so that if anything should happen to one set of them, I'm not SOL.

Good Luck.

[Converge]

Thats not a backup. A backup is a true backup, either hdds that are completely separate from the system and/or (preferably and) DVD/CDs that are stored somewhere and cannot be altered.

If he copied files to a secondary device, CD,DVD, another harddrive....it IS a backup.

While youre method will certainly result in greater chances of data recovery, he did have a backup.....a second drive (whether IDE/SATA or USB) is a popular and very convenient way to backup your data.

[vwpilot]

While I dont want to get into semantics, I think this is a great lesson for folks who think they are in ok shape, so here are a couple definitions of backups:

Computers.
a. a copy or duplicate version, esp. of a file, program, or entire computer system, retained for use in the event that the original is in some way rendered unusable.
b. a procedure to follow in such an event.

Computer Science
A copy of a program or file that is stored separately from the original.

Now, having a second copy is indeed a form of backup, however, in the real world, simply having a second copy that is kept in the same location as the original does not really constitute a backup.

In the first one, it says a backup is there if the original is rendered unusable. In the second it states its stored separately from the original.

While having a second copy of a file on a separate hdd is a simple form of backup if one of those hdds goes unusable, but what if the computer gets a virus and corrupts everything connected to it? What if you have a break in and they steal all your computer stuff? What if there is a fire that destroys the computer room/office? What if someone has access to the computer and accidentally erases or damages the system?

A true backup, and something we should all have if we care about our photos, is something where, at a minimum, you have a couple of copies with at least one copy nowhere near the machine in case of some kind of catastrophic failure or screw up at the machine.

I feel terrible for the guy and hopefully both him and his wife learned their lessons. It also took me several years to figure this out that just having a second copy is not enough to really be safe.

Get something that is not near or connected to your computer. I know its more of a pain than simply having a second hdd, but its what you need to truly be safe. HDDs are cheap and it doesnt make sense not to have at least three copies of everything that will truly be a backup.