Just re-installed Windows on a failed HDisk. . . . . i didn't format or partition the HDisk, just installed a fresh copy of Windows Xp but i can't access the old Word/Excel/Powerpoint files that were on the HDisk. . . . .

why is this ? is it possible for me to still retrieve 'em. . . . . or are they lost 4 good ? pls i need ur help!

reinstall office

nbeet2000:

reinstall office

maybe my initial post was a little vague. . . . what i meant was i can't see the files at all. thought when u install a fresh copy of an OS over another without formating the HDisk, the word/excel files on it would still be visible even if Office ain't installed yet. . . .

Failed Hard disk? What error(s) did you get before you tagged it failed?
Provide this information so that I can narrow down the possibilities.

Maleeq:

Failed Hard disk? What error(s) did you get before you tagged it failed?
Provide this information so that I can narrow down the possibilities.

can't remember the exact message, but it was always telling me to press ctrl+alt+del to restart. . . . never boots beyond that black screen where the message is displayed!

Well, there are a lot of possible casues here. Some times, Hard disks have their MBRs, MFTs or partition/LDM corrupted. From the aforementioned, only the MBR corruption does not tamper with the file indices. The others may results in files getting their index deleted. When this happens, Windows installation would not see those files. . . but in reality, they still exist provided YOU HAVE NOT OVERWRITTEN THE SECTORS WHERE THEY ARE LOCATED.

My advice is that. when you have a faulty HDD with files you still want to recover, take it out and connect it as a secondary drive on another system. There are a thousand and one disk utilies that can recover your files.

Of all these utilities, my fav is HIREN 9.0. It has a sub program, GetDataBackFAT / GetDataBackNTFS. These perform a sector scan on the entire disk and identify files that are still intact/recoverable even though they are not one the MFT table!. But it is paramount that you dont wrtie new data to the disc before the recovery.

Download the HIREN boot cd and then I'll proceed with the recovery procedure.

so you're saying i can never get those files back again ?

Not exactly. I said "it depends on what you have written onto the disk before your run the recovery procedure"
When you delete a file, it's the index to the file that is deleted and not the actully data that make up the file. So, the OS marks that space as free until you write over it with another data. That way, you can never get the previous file back, for ever!

Run the Hiren tool, you'll get a list of files that you can salvage. But I ddoubt you getting much, because you've already re-installed the OS : enough writes has been made to the disk already. The probabbility that you have over written the data you want to get back is high.!

Dont give up, give it a try 1st.

pls' run me thru d procedures 4 using the Hiren programme. . . . bet i won't have to master-slave the HDisk again ab ?

where can i download this HIREN from . . . .

Let me upload the file. I'll post the link here when I am done.

Maleeq:

Let me upload the file. I'll post the link here when I am done.

geez. . . . thanx bro! how long is it g'onna take to download on a very weak network connexion of 2.0mbps ?

2Mbps
Are you in Naija? Cos the link speed is way out of everyday user's speed league around here. At that speed, you'll get in in less than 10minutes. Its about 75Mb.
I am uploading it to rapidshare. Once it's done, it'll be posted here.

thanx man. . . . but g'otta log out now and hit the road. hope i'm not g'onna need any passwords or stuff to download it - i've seen various links that lead me to rapidshare already and got no change!
can i still get it 2moro if u upload it now ?

thanx aplenty man!

Here are the links. Remember, you have to download all the parts before you can extract the file.

Now, the file is in *.iso format (an image file) so you'll need to burn it onto a CD or load it into a virtual CD (Nero, Daemon Tools etc).
Once you done this, just click on the "GetDataBackNTFS" or "GetDataBackFAT" depending on the format the drive was.

Hiren Boot CD Part 1
Hiren Boot CD Part 2
Hiren Boot CD Part 3
Hiren Boot CD Part 4
Hiren Boot CD Part 5

Let me know if you need any more information.