Screwed

The setup:

My PC has 4 drives, 3 physical in all, one partitioned, the other two stand alone. The list is as follows.

1st Drive - WDC 1600 (160G Partitioned) = C: "System" drive (50G), F: "Recordings" drive (100G)

2nd Drive - Samsung (80G) = D: "Downloading" drive.

3rd drive WDC 1600 (160G, in USB 2.0 enclosure) = E: "Library" drive


The issue:

I had lost my Windows XP Pro disk, and had a little problem a while back and decided to clean up the mess and installed a legit copy XP Home. It wasn't really living up to what I needed it to do, so I took the PC to a computer store across the street to a man who installs XP Pro for $30 with antivirus, Nero and the whole nine...I can do this procedure myself but as I said I lost my disks (in a recent move)

I also needed a new case so I picked one up while I was in there, leaving the drives in the PC so he could put everything in its rightful place. (once again, something I can do myself, but this man is a professional and i had other things to do that day)

I left the PC with him, leaving instructions that the OS was to go on my C: "System" drive. Not only do I have it written to the drives so that when you open up windows install/partition menu you see what's what, I also have stickers on each drive identifying them.

Luckily I had disconnected my E:"Library" drive because not only did this man format the partitioned drive wiping everything I had stored on F: "recordings", but he also formatted the "Downloading" drive that had absolutely nothing to do with what I asked him to do in the first place. To me that's like asking someone to come over and fix the lawnmower, and he decides to throw everything in your garage out too! Does this man have any sense?

Anyway, I have a friend of mine who lives in another city now who is a computer tech, he sent me "Get Back Data for NTFS"

I've used this program before, and it got everything back. The only thing this time around, the man wiped the partitions, and put the OS on a completely different drive (D" downloading") So everything on D is gone, which is unimportant, but it was still alot of stuff. But now after spending the last 24 hours pulling up everything on the previously partitioned, now stand alone drive, the index is completely shot so even though I got the files back (a good 40 000) nothing is what it used to be.

I would rename everything if there wasn't at least 40 000 files, high hats, drums, applications, sequencer PK.s etc....


Is there anything that can be done? I thought maybe I can take the E "Library" which is backed up and is identical to the other 160 (formally C"System" and F "Recordings") with the important stuff, wipe it (E), drag everything over onto that drive exactly how it appears on the old drive and maybe there is a registry fix that would work?

I want to try only non destructive methods at the moment until I can find something a little more reliable.

Any help/ideas would be much appreciated. Well any help besides "that's why you should always back up" (i lost all my disks remember? I hadn'tt had a chance to back anything up yet)

Maddhatter

im wondering if the data is lost or if the drive letters just changed during a reinstall which they have a tendency to do...

__________________
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6320 Conroe 1.86GHz
PSU: Rosewill 400W
Ram: G.Skill 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit
GPU: Ati Radeon x1800xt 256 mb
OS: Windows XP Professional 64 bit

Praetor

Have a look at Active@Undelete and Restoration (free)

__________________
ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8
4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400
5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10
OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI

Trizoy

I would ask for you money back. You have a firm case of Tech Error.

__________________
01100110 01100001 01110010 01110100

Praetor

That and WindowsXP Pro + software + labor for $30? You can take his ass down heehee

__________________
ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8
4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400
5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10
OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI

Trizoy

installs XP Pro for $30 with antivirus

He says he lost the disk, not the Cd-key. Still shady though...

There are a lot of Antivirus programs out there that are free.


Just goes to show you, if you want it done right... you have to do it yourself.

__________________
01100110 01100001 01110010 01110100

Praetor

Nero isnt. Neither is the whole nine. Of course if he's installing Nero demo, that's pretty retarded

__________________
ASUS P5K Premium WiFi-AP, Q6600@3.7 / ASUS P5ND, E6400@3.8
4GB OCz Platinum XTC 8500 / 4GB CorsairXMS2 6400
5x500GB Seagate 7200.10 / 2x500 Seagate 7200.10
OCz 8800GTX 768MB @ 630/800 / 2x Galaxy 8800GT SLI

Screwed

Well the files seem to be all there, it's just that when I click on say "Housemix - 24:46" it will open " Reggaemix - 15:03" all the files are not what they say they are.

SirKenin

I can't help you restore your files, unfortunately, but as a tech myself I can say I'm sickened with what has happened to you. As you can see there are too many self-professed techs around (the advent of the internet and Google and stuff make it even easier) that give the rest of us a bad name. I'm really sorry. Please spread the word to everyone that you know that this guy is completely useless (word of mouth is incredibly powerful) and report him to Microsoft at piracy@microsoft.com. or 1-800-R-U-LEGIT. Piracy is a very serious offence. Microsoft actively pursues them and seeks large settlements. It will most likely shut him down.

I can't stand people like that. Can you tell? Once again, I'm sorry about what happened.

StrangleHold

a man who installs XP Pro for $30 with antivirus, Nero and the whole nine...

__________________