Personal files gone BYE BYE after Vista upgrade!

I upgraded to Vista Home Premium from Windows XP Media, and yes I've done my
research. I opened C:\ right away and i was like. "wow they cleared a lot of
disk space" only to avail, I lost all my movies, all my mp3s, all my
photos... resume's, etc. Yes, I've done PLENTY of research and digging
through my harddrive and the internet. There is NO "Windows.Old" file. No
trace of "mp3" ANYwHERE!

Tried Data Recovery, etc. Tried everything. I've got nothin. I lost a lot of
personal stuff with this, family photos of those who arent with me anymore,
pictures from Iraq. Everything. Any suggestions?

Forwarded to appropriate newsgroup via crosspost: Vista General.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/

Marauder121 wrote:
> I upgraded to Vista Home Premium from Windows XP Media, and yes I've done
> my
> research. I opened C:\ right away and i was like. "wow they cleared a lot
> of
> disk space" only to avail, I lost all my movies, all my mp3s, all my
> photos... resume's, etc. Yes, I've done PLENTY of research and digging
> through my harddrive and the internet. There is NO "Windows.Old" file. No
> trace of "mp3" ANYwHERE!
>
> Tried Data Recovery, etc. Tried everything. I've got nothin. I lost a lot
> of
> personal stuff with this, family photos of those who arent with me
> anymore,
> pictures from Iraq. Everything. Any suggestions?

PA Bear [MS MVP] wrote:
> Forwarded to appropriate newsgroup via crosspost: Vista General.

Marauder121 wrote:
> I upgraded to Vista Home Premium from Windows XP Media, and yes I've
done my
> research. I opened C:\ right away and i was like. "wow they cleared a
lot of
> disk space" only to avail, I lost all my movies, all my mp3s, all my
> photos... resume's, etc. Yes, I've done PLENTY of research and digging
> through my harddrive and the internet. There is NO "Windows.Old" file. No
> trace of "mp3" ANYwHERE!
>
> Tried Data Recovery, etc. Tried everything. I've got nothin. I lost a
lot of
> personal stuff with this, family photos of those who arent with me
anymore,
> pictures from Iraq. Everything. Any suggestions?

Marauder121 - You upgraded your operating system without first backing
up? As you have now discovered, this was unwise. If there is no
Windows.old and you have searched for your files, then you have lost
them. Stop using the computer immediately. Using the machine only
decreases the possibility of recovering any of the data.

Since you weren't specific about what data recovery products you used,
here are some links to data recovery software in case you want to try
some others. I use EasyRecovery Pro, but it is expensive. Depending on
your skills and situation, it might be better for you to take the
machine to a computer professional who does data retrieval.

http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/RESTORATION.html
PCInspector File Recovery -
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/welcome.htm
Executive Software “Undelete” -
http://www.execsoft.com/undelete/undelete.asp
R-Studio - http://www.r-tt.com/
File Scavenger - http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm
Ontrack's EasyRecovery - http://www.ontrack.com/software/

If you have already tried consumer-level data recovery procedures, then
the only path left is to send the hard drive to a professional data
recovery company like Drive Savers (my preference) or Seagate Data
Recovery. General prices run from $500USD on up. Drive Savers recovered
all the data on a failed laptop drive for one of my clients and it cost
$2,700. He thought it was worth the money; only you know what your data
is worth. I understand that some insurance companies are now covering
data recovery charges so check with yours.

Drive Savers - http://www.drivesavers.com
Seagate Data Recovery Services - https://www.seagatedatarecovery.com/

When this is over, create and implement a backup strategy so this sort
of thing doesn't happen to you again.


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

On 12-Jan-2008, Malke <notreally@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> Marauder121 - You upgraded your operating system without first backing
> up? As you have now discovered, this was unwise. If there is no
> Windows.old and you have searched for your files, then you have lost
> them.

Surely this is the sign of a crap OS.
No warning that upgrading will wipe your drive.
Why would anyone with any common sense
touch non-OS files as part of an upgrade?
Typical of shiddy incompetent programmers.

ato_zee@hotmail.com wrote:
>> Marauder121 - You upgraded your operating system without first backing
>> up? As you have now discovered, this was unwise. If there is no
>> Windows.old and you have searched for your files, then you have lost
>> them.
>
> Surely this is the sign of a crap OS.
> No warning that upgrading will wipe your drive.
> Why would anyone with any common sense
> touch non-OS files as part of an upgrade?
> Typical of shiddy incompetent programmers.

Uh-huh. Tell me something: When you buy a new car, is all the accumulated
crap in the glove box of the old car found in the glove box of the new one?

ato_zee@hotmail.com wrote:

>
>
> ...Surely this is the sign of a crap OS...

Sorry, but Vista does not wipe the drive clean when it upgrades from one
OS to Vista.
Frank

ato_zee@hotmail.com wrote:
> On 12-Jan-2008, Malke <notreally@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Marauder121 - You upgraded your operating system without first backing
>> up? As you have now discovered, this was unwise. If there is no
>> Windows.old and you have searched for your files, then you have lost
>> them.
>
> Surely this is the sign of a crap OS.
> No warning that upgrading will wipe your drive.
> Why would anyone with any common sense
> touch non-OS files as part of an upgrade?
> Typical of shiddy incompetent programmers.

I have never had an 'upgrade' to an OS wipe the drive. In
the interest of helping others prevent the same thing from
happening to them it would help if Marauder121 would post
exactly what steps he performed while carrying out the
upgrade. I suspect that somewhere along the way that the
drive was inadvertently formatted somehow. This kind of
thing makes a case for having a separate partition, or
preferably a second drive, for your personal data. Also
makes a case for having and using an external backup.

I'm sorry to say that his data is probably lost unless he's
willing to pay big bucks to have it recovered by a company
that specializes in data recovery.

Hobo

In article <OreHo7TVIHA.4196@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl>,
PA Bear [MS MVP] <moc.liamg@PVMraeBAP> wrote:
>
>Uh-huh. Tell me something: When you buy a new car, is all the accumulated
>crap in the glove box of the old car found in the glove box of the new one?
>

That's a false analogy. Buying a new car would correspond more
closely to buying a new computer, and no, I wouldn't expect old data to
magically be preserved. But a software update is like taking your car
to the garage for a brake job and when you get it back your glove box and
trunk are empty.

Damn straight I expect an OS upgrade to preserve user data. Or
at least warn me if it can't.

the wharf rat wrote:
<snip>
> Damn straight I expect an OS upgrade to preserve user data. Or
> at least warn me if it can't.

Well, you gotta do it right, for one. And if you value your personal data,
it'd be foolish not to have made a backup (and maintain incremental backups
all along) before making changes as drastic as upgrading the OS.
--
~Robear Dyer (PA Bear)
MS MVP-Windows (IE, OE, Security, Shell/User)
AumHa VSOP & Admin http://aumha.net
DTS-L http://dts-l.net/

I did an upgrade from XPMCE to VHP, and didn't lose any of my files.
Perhaps the OP made a mistake and did a clean install instead of an upgrade.
Or perhaps there is some confusion over the word "upgrade".
In any case, it shouldn't matter, because if you want to keep your data, you
will back it up.


--
http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview

<ato_zee@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:4788f16e$0$21088$da0feed9@news.zen.co.uk...
>
> On 12-Jan-2008, Malke <notreally@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Marauder121 - You upgraded your operating system without first backing
>> up? As you have now discovered, this was unwise. If there is no
>> Windows.old and you have searched for your files, then you have lost
>> them.
>
> Surely this is the sign of a crap OS.
> No warning that upgrading will wipe your drive.
> Why would anyone with any common sense
> touch non-OS files as part of an upgrade?
> Typical of shiddy incompetent programmers.