HP NON-destructive recovery LOST my files

M

mrjimbo

New Member
I have a friend's HP Pavilion A1600n (Win Media Edition) computer, because she couldn't get it to boot.

I performed the NON-destructive recovery options, and now I see there are NO files (no word documents, no excel spreadsheets, no pictures... nothing!).

I remember during the non-destructive recovery process, the computer spent 20 minutes backing up files to the drive D: partition.

Is threr ANY WAY I can restore files that were copied to this partition during the process?

Everytime I try to access the "HP Recovery" drive, it has a big picture of a safety lock and I can't access it.

HELP!
 
You have to refer to the HP information on restoration of backup files if those were made. The manual and online support section should provide information since that's their product there.
 
Yeah, I went online with Tech support. He won't tell me how to access the recovery partition. Also, he said I need a third party software to restore the files.

Know of any FREE software that can recover HP's recovery partition or something?
 
I know that Knoppix and some other Live for cd releases of different Linux distros like ubuntu can be used to copy files when you can't access an NTFS or Fat partition. Usually a backup by a proprietary software is compressed into an archive where you need the right tool/program for extracting files or restoration however. That would have the question for tech support there what to use.

Vista now sees it's own backup tool for restoration that will restore any backups created by it from a previous installation. The description for the hidden protected area on an IBM Thinkpad also applies to desktops wtih preinstalled OSs as well.

The Hidden Protected Area

The Hidden Protected Area (also known as the Host Protected Area) is a special area (usually a few gigabytes in size) located at the end of a hard disk. It is preinstalled on the harddisks of some ThinkPads. It is normally hidden to the software running on your ...? (make and model) http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Hidden_Protected_Area

That was addon for the rescue and recovery information.

"As opposed to a Hidden Protected Area Recovery partitions are ordinary partitions, accessible through the partition table. As they are ordinary partitions they are accessible by ordinary partitioning tools. They should be dealt with carefully." http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Rescue_and_Recovery

XP has it's own method for restoration of backups created by Windows while there are retail programs like Partition Recovery http://www.finalrecovery.com/partition-recovery/index.htm for performing the task like the support staff mentioned.

"HOW TO USE WINDOWS XP: RESTORING YOUR BACKUP FILES" is a good guide with screen shots outlining how to restore backups from within XP irself. http://uis.georgetown.edu/software/documentation/winxp/winxp.restore.html

Without trying a live distro or retail recovery program for this that was one other option. One 2004 article details how the live for cd Knoppix distro is used for this. http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/
 
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