[Tal]

Hi all,

I'm turning here as my last refuge.

I've installed Ubuntu today. When I've partitioned the hard drive it did something I could not gather, and managed to corrupt my Windows partition. Great job. Windows did not boot 'drive is locked', and after recovering it using the Windows Boot CD Repair function, it just locked somehow, and didn't want to boot the Windows CD. Long story short, I've used the Ubuntu Live CD to format the hard drive, then reinstalled Windows.

I have some important documents that I don't feel like writing again in there. I've tried running multiple recovery software solutions. They were all able to find some files (unknown names) and recover them, however, the result is utter gibberish. Yes, I've tried running XVI32, it's still gibberish. I've tried about 3 recovery solutions: 'Recover My Files', 'File Scavenger' and another one. I have saved the recovered files to an external flash disc so as not to overwrite the source files.

Do you have any suggestions? I will be utterly grateful to you if you can restore the files back to me!

I can also try running some linux-based tools via the Ubuntu live CD. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to look into that, I'm very busy, so I just need someone to tell me what to do, what to download - anything! Please help me get back those documents! We're talking about one file, 2-5 MB of size, created by Office 2007 and converted to a normal .doc document. It has a two column formatting and two pictures. File name should be 'TOT Interview' or a variation of this. Also a couple of Text Box objects. Is there a way?

Many, many thanks,

Tal.

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Since you formatted the drive, it will be virtually impossible to retrieve any data by any program.
Initially, I would have put the drive in another computer.
I do not know of any programs that are tried and true for recovery, unless you get into the very, very expensive ones, or a company that will be able to do it. But this option can run thousands of dollars.

Lets see if anyone else has some suggestions.
Good luck.

[123Runner]

Since you formatted the drive, it will be virtually impossible to retrieve any data by any program.
Initially, I would have put the drive in another computer.
I do not know of any programs that are tried and true for recovery, unless you get into the very, very expensive ones, or a company that will be able to do it. But this option can run thousands of dollars.

Lets see if anyone else has some suggestions.
Good luck.

[Tal]

Well, I've decided just to re-write everything

[Hubster2]

try putting the Ubuntu Live CD into the drive upside down. If that doesn't work, just rinse with water for 5 mins.