Retrieving lost pictures???

[Ezbagr]

Awhile back my laptop took a******and I had to do a system restore and in the process I lost alot of pictures. As I understand the pictures are still on the hard drive. Does anyone know of a way to get them back?

[1492]

Gdetrailer wrote:

1492 wrote:

tplife wrote:
Remove the hard drive from the laptop, change its pins to make it a slave drive. Plug this into a PC and explore the new slave drive for your photos. Download them into the PC hard drive, then change the pins on the slave back to master and re-install into the laptop.

It would have to be an old laptop if it had a PATA drive? SATA doesn't doesn't require any master/slave configuration.

LAPTOP PATA (parallel ATA or Parallel IDE) drives DO NOT have any Master/Slave drive configuration jumpers that I know of. Everyone of the PATA laptop drives I have ever had my hands on only have the interface/power connection...

Most 2.5" PATA HDs for laptops are set to a cable select type of configuration to identify between Master/Slave, based on cable channel. Though its possible to have more than one HD in a laptop, I've never come across one with PATA drives. Not unheard of with SATA drives, as some either forgo or remove the DVD drive in favor of a second SATA storage drive. Many times using an SSD for the OS drive, and a second SATA HD for data. But, still not very common.

[MrWizard]

i pulled the drive from my dead win 7 laptop
put it in an adapter case and my win 8 laptop, accesses it with no problem
just cannot access the boot sectors

all programs folders , documents, and photo files are available

but of course there was nothing wrong with the drive
the CPU on my old laptop was flaky

[Gdetrailer]

1492 wrote:

tplife wrote:
Remove the hard drive from the laptop, change its pins to make it a slave drive. Plug this into a PC and explore the new slave drive for your photos. Download them into the PC hard drive, then change the pins on the slave back to master and re-install into the laptop.

It would have to be an old laptop if it had a PATA drive? SATA doesn't doesn't require any master/slave configuration.

LAPTOP PATA (parallel ATA or Parallel IDE) drives DO NOT have any Master/Slave drive configuration jumpers that I know of. Everyone of the PATA laptop drives I have ever had my hands on only have the interface/power connection...

Besides plugging a drive directly into a PCs internal drive port is so 1990s. You can BUY a USB to hard drive "cable" adapter for less than $10 now days. This allows you to be able to plug a drive into a USB and NEVER have to crack open the PC case. Works great especially if you only have another laptop to work with.

Totally avoids a few other issues like WINDOWS detecting another BOOTABLE drive WHILE THE PC IS BOOTING.

Newer versions of Windows starting with Win7 WILL AUTOMATICALLY DISABLE any and all drives it discovers which have a ACTIVE BOOTABLE PARTITION. In fact Win7 may even detect the active partition on the USB drive and disable it too so, this is no longer a reliable way to fix or find lost files (or even copy files from an old PC). It is difficult to force Win7 to allow you access when it marks a drive as conflicting... :M

[1492]

tplife wrote:
Remove the hard drive from the laptop, change its pins to make it a slave drive. Plug this into a PC and explore the new slave drive for your photos. Download them into the PC hard drive, then change the pins on the slave back to master and re-install into the laptop.

It would have to be an old laptop if it had a PATA drive? SATA doesn't doesn't require any master/slave configuration.

[elivi8]

Get an external drive case that will house the laptop drive. They usually have USB on them and you can plug back into your new laptop (or rebuilt laptop) and the files will show up as another drive. Its just like plugging in a USB stick. It gives you the original file structure. This is fully dependant on how screwed up the drive is of course but its a fairly cheap solution to try.

Ryan

[Bucky_Badger]

Windows System Restore does not affect pics and docs. But you stated it took a ****, so it sounds like you reinstalled windows....Not likely for the standard user to recover your files

[Trackrig]

This is why everyone should go to someplace like Costco and buy a (physically) small, and very portable hard drive like the Western Digital 1 terrabite units. They come preloaded with software to download whatever is on you PC or laptop. Your laptop is going to crash or get stolen sooner or later. They're cheap enough to buy two of them. Copy everything to one and leave it at home or with a friend if you full time. Download everything to the other one also and keep it with you.

Bill

[tplife]

Consider undoing the system restore, this will return the files to the way they were before. Remove the hard drive from the laptop, change its pins to make it a slave drive. Plug this into a PC and explore the new slave drive for your photos. Download them into the PC hard drive, then change the pins on the slave back to master and re-install into the laptop. Repeat the system restore.

[1492]

Did you mean doing a System Restore, not using the notebook's restore discs which reloads Windows OS? If it's just a System Restore, it shouldn't delete any of your personal files such as photos. However, if you reloaded Windows OS from the restore disks, than in general, it will also reformat the drive. This will make recovering photos more difficult, but not impossible. However, the likelihood of recovering all will be slim.

Try using this free utility Recuva. Another free recovery utility to try is Puran File Recovery.

[Gdetrailer]

Ezbagr wrote:
Awhile back my laptop took a******and I had to do a system restore and in the process I lost alot of pictures. As I understand the pictures are still on the hard drive. Does anyone know of a way to get them back?

Depends on the "type" of system restore that has been done.

If it was system restore from Windows System restore which basically only restores some files you "might" have a chance.

If it was a restore from scratch or your manufacturers "recovery" process then all bets are off due to your files potentially being partially or fully overwritten.

You can try UNDELETE360 to see if you can "recover" any of your old files.

UNDELETE360 LINK

I have used this utility to recover accidentally formatted SD memory cards. Works best if you have NOT added any NEW FILES since adding new files can overwrite the "deleted" or "formatted" drives.

In the future, it is a very wise plan to BACKUP ALL of your "important" files like photos on a SEPARATE drive or media. External USB HDs are extremely cheap now days and should be a must have for anyone who has a computer...

[Horsedoc]

Just an idea, but why don't you check with the state police forensic unit or a larger metro police dept. I ran the forensic unit at our PD for several years and we had techs that could recover images (porn and child porn as well as business records on financial cases) I don't think they would do it officially, but they may have a tech that works off duty doing this kind of thing. Not sure the files have been overwritten but may have been petitioned on the HD and are no longer 'seen' or available.

[MrWizard]

I think..any chance of recovery of 'actual lost files'
has been lost, because the space where they were has been written over by new data
this kind of attempt has too be done by special software 'immediately' after the event

if the drive was removed and sent to a 'data recovery center'

some of the pictures 'might' be retrieved, but the process is costly and there is a good chance tne results would be less than stellar