[Canus]

well i seem to have made and error in judgement and while repairing my windows file i was having a little dificulty so i figured that i would set up windows again on my computer so that i could get the files i needed, move them to my external HD and then reformat and install a fresh copy of windows.

but unfortunatly for me i recorded everything from BOTH windows xp installed onto the external hd and now i am having an extreame amount of trouble locating all of the files i need, infact wherever i think they should be it says that the folder is empty. i would love any amount of help

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Can any one please help me? its been 3 days without a responce

[Canus]

Can any one please help me? its been 3 days without a responce

[wannabe1]

Hi Canus...

Can you describe for me the steps you followed when you reinstalled Windows? It may help us to figure out what happened to your files.

wannabe1

[Canus]

ok well first i inserted the windows xp cd and restarted my comp, then i pushed any key and brought up the interface. After that when i was told i tried to repair windows using the windows xp cd. this seemed to be going smoothly until a certain moment, when it was reinstalling my drivers when everythign would seize up and i couldnt even move my mouse. I tried this 3 to 4 times before i figured that there was nothing i could do. so i restarted it once more and decided to install windows without formatting, I choose to install windows to my desktop as opposed to my windows folder in hopes that everything would still be there.

[wannabe1]

Right click on My Computer and choose "Properties". Click on the "Advanced" tab, then, in the "Startup and Recovery" section, click on the "Settings" button. In the window that opens, click on the "Edit" button. A notepad window will open (boot.ini)...copy the contents of that window and paste it here for me.

Open Local Disk C: from My Computer. Do you have more than one folder with "Windows" (or a variation of Windows) as the name? Open "Documents and Settings" and look for a folder with your user name (your old one). Do you find one there?

[Canus]

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect


i dont have another windows in my c: as i formated and reinstalled but in my external frive i have 2 windows, one installed on the desktop i believe

[wannabe1]

i dont have another windows in my c: as i formated and reinstalled

This will effectively get rid of all your files for you. They may still be on the HDD, but they will be difficult to recover and will likely be a little spendy. There are applications available that may recover the files (GetDataBack is the one I use...$89 USD), but the likelyhhod of finding a free one that will recover files from a formatted drive is small.

The boot.ini shows the machine booting to the root partition, or Local Disk C:...and the Windows folder found within. (multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS). Are the installations on the external done from images or actually installed using the cd?

[Canus]

yah i know that its found on the c: drive, im just interested in my music and picture files on the external , everything else is expendable if lost. but the pictures will cost me about a month of hard work to reproduce and thats no good as people need them by the end of next week

[wannabe1]

How did you copy the files to the external?

Did you move the Documents and Settings (C:\Documents and Settings) folder to the external drive before you formatted?

[Canus]

well i used the back up program to compleatly copy all the files windows and all to the external before i formated, but there was already another windows that i installed previously, so to simplify there was a windows installed onto my desktop for temporary measures and then there was the regular windows on the c drive. I copied everything

[wannabe1]

What backup program did you use? You may have to use the same application to restore the files.

[Canus]

its just the one button push on my external, ive already tryed to restore them using that

[wannabe1]

In the interest of finding out if the files are on the external drive, download GetDataBack and run it to check the external. Get the version for the file system on the drive you want to check (FAT or NTFS). It's free to download and run, but to do the recovery you'll have to purchase the license. This will at least tell us if the files are on the drive and show if they are recoverable.