Is data recovery possible?

June 18, 2007 11:34 PM

my brother had a corrupt system file that causes windows XP media center ed. to not boot up. while in the recovery console, he accidentally clicked an option to restore the computer to factory settings. Is it possible to recover the data he lost?
posted by FireStyle to computers & internet (2 answers total)

Some of it, maybe, with something like Active@ Undelete. But don't hold your breath. The most likely outcome is that his previous files are toast.
posted by flabdablet at 1:04 AM on June 19, 2007

Possibly. Take a look around c:\Documents and Settings and see if an old home directory is sitting around in there. If not, STOP USING THE MACHINE IMMEDIATELY, grab undeletion code on another machine (Active@ Undelete, or Restoration, or a couple of others -- Restoration is nice and free) and have them do searches.
posted by effugas at 3:07 AM on June 19, 2007