[Carl_E]

Hi,
I have a friend with a Dell Optiplex 330 that is blue screening.
History
Before my involvement, all passwords were forgotten so no one could access their data. The upshot is that Win XP was reinstalled and all data lost!!!!!
Glad it wasn’t me being so careless
My understanding is that the system was stable before this.
I would be most appreciative of your input on the following: -

(1)
Has anyone ever recovered data from a disk that has had XP reinstalled (don’t know if full or quick format used) I doubt that it can, especially as the PC has been used for about a week since the rebuild followed by progressively more frequent BSOD's. (Data Recovery Specialised are not really an option)

(2)
To fix the BSOD problem, what do you think I should look at first? (Unfortunately I do not know what the stop code is yet!!!)
I was going to check for missing drivers and update as necessary and then make sure MS update is up-to-date. I will also take a look inside and reseat/clean as the system is approx 5-6 years old
I'm going in a little blind really, so any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Carl

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Formatting a drive will not clear all the data. What it does is mark the locations/sectors available to be used. Since it has been over a week with use, I highly expect that you will not get any data back. You could try Recuva but you would need another hard drive to copy what it finds to.

As for the BSOD's.....Make sure that all the drivers and devices are installed. Check in device manager for any unknowns. A new install should not have any issues. There could be memory issues or hard drive issues, or corrupt OS.

[123Runner]

Formatting a drive will not clear all the data. What it does is mark the locations/sectors available to be used. Since it has been over a week with use, I highly expect that you will not get any data back. You could try Recuva but you would need another hard drive to copy what it finds to.

As for the BSOD's.....Make sure that all the drivers and devices are installed. Check in device manager for any unknowns. A new install should not have any issues. There could be memory issues or hard drive issues, or corrupt OS.

[Carl_E]

thanks for that,
I've not used Recuva before... Will an external USB HDD do? It's a 2.5 Sata so can't use it in the Dell i dont think.
I don't know what make the HDD will be, but hope to download an hdd fitness test of some sort too
Thanks again

[phillpower2]

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