Member Avatar for jaci

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i accidentally reformatted my computer
i know, that sounds really stupid and yes it probably is..

basically i was having problems with it today, it kept blue screening when i turned it on (suspected virus) and safe mode didn't work either... windows just wouldn't load

so i dug up my acer laptop recovery cd and loaded that... unfortunately, i've never done "recovery" before and misunderstood what it meant... i thought it'd be like a boot cd but it seems to have wiped my whole computer - programs, files, settings, drivers, everything

i desperately want my old files back in particular... i had all these med notes i'd done and photographs i hadn't printed or saved elsewhere

is there any way to get these back? i've vaguely heard that even when files are 'deleted' they lurk on ur computers somewhere forever, for potential use by hackers if u sell ur computer.. so i was hoping they might still be recoverable, somehow...

please please help me anyone any ideas would be greatly appreciated

ps apologies if this is the wrong section

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by nizzy1115
Member Avatar for nizzy1115

It all depends. If you actually formatted the drive you are probably out of luck, and any files that you have that have been over written by the files that are currently are on your computer are gone for ever. There is a small chance that some of the files you had saved before were stored near the end of the hard drive, and if you did not do a complete ntfs format of the drive, you may be able to recover these by a professional service (usually range from $1,000 - $10,000) or you could try out some software that tries to do this too which usually starts at around $50 - $75 and nothing is guarenteed. But generally speaking, i would say that you are out of luck and what is gone is gone. Thats why it is important to back up your important files on cd's, dvd's, or external hard drives.

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