[bincka]

Hello,
I had to completely reinstall XP due to a major error. Using a recovery program,
I need another drive to save my lost files onto.... I lost about 3000 photos, including a week long trip to Disney!!!

THANK YOU

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first of all check out for free space your computer has, if there is enough i think you can repartition your drive and make a new partition where you can store files and folders. windows partitioning utility won't allow this operation so you need to use 3d party software, as for me i use disk director, it's not free, but it's really good. here is a free one piece of software, but it has some limitations partition logic.

But it think the easiest way would be to burn them on dvds.

[sharlpero]

first of all check out for free space your computer has, if there is enough i think you can repartition your drive and make a new partition where you can store files and folders. windows partitioning utility won't allow this operation so you need to use 3d party software, as for me i use disk director, it's not free, but it's really good. here is a free one piece of software, but it has some limitations partition logic.

But it think the easiest way would be to burn them on dvds.

[pip22]

If you only have one actual drive inside the PC, you can normally create a second partition on it to use as a backup. However, that means the C partition would then be smaller, so if you have recovery disks to re-install Windows, the C partition would be too small and the recovery would fail. Apart from that, you've already re-installed Windows so creating a second partition can only be done by deleting the existing one, unless you buy an application called "Partition Magic" which can create a second partition without destroying the existing Windows one.

Your best and easiest option is to buy a second hard drive so there's no need to interfere with the existing drive at all.
Use the second hard drive to back up all your own files in 'My Documents". That way, if you need to use the full Windows recovery again you can do it without losing all your files. Just copy them over from the backup drive when Windows is up and running.

Personally, I would trust CDs and DVDs less than a second hard disk as a backup solution, plus backing up to a second hard disk is whole lot simpler than cd/dvd writing.

Edited by pip22, 09 March 2007 - 08:18 AM.

[bincka]

Thanks, I had a feeling I would be best off to bu something externally.
What about my external USB memory stick? It would take about 50 rounds of copying and
restoring, but would that work? I plan to create a total backup as suggested once get my files loaded
back onto my system.


THANKS for such a timely reply.

[piper]

Yes, that could work, with the limitations you've mentioned.

However, external USB hard drives have come down in price and I think that might be a better long-term solution for you.

[bincka]

Absolutely.
I just want to feel better and get my files back in my Kodac program ASAP.

Thanks to all for the advice.
Topic closed.

[happyrock]

you can get a dual layer dvd burner for about $ 50.00...burn all the data you can't live without...make multiple copies...any data you don't have at least 2 copies of is data you really don't care about....

[Dwight]

Hi bincka. I don't know if this will help you?

Xdrive is a FREE 5GB of storage on line

http://www.xdrive.com/

[dsenette]

as a note...if you're trying to recover LOST info (i.e deleted or lost due to a format) you SHOULD NOT repartition the active drive and use it...if you do you run the risk of overwriting the deleted info...you should also try not to save ANYTHING on the computer untill you're able to recover the data

[bincka]

Thanks to all replies, I will use the free 5GB storage to recover, and then try to place back on my computer. I had about 75% of the pictures on disc, just lagged behind.....
I will post results to hopefully end the post.

THANKS