[a45b22chp]

So my friend hit F11 during boot-up and accidently ran System Recovery, effectively erasing the entire system. I assume it repartitioned and installed Windows XP. I am hoping a program like File Recovery at http://www.pcinspect.../uk/welcome.htm or some other free or inexpensive program can help to get the job solved. Since any recovery program needs to be run from a seperate system, will networking work? Either via a crossover ethernet cable or by those special double male USB networking cables? This is a laptop, so I don't want to try to remove the HD and make it a slave.

Any suggestions or comments?
Any good system recovery programs out there?

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Networking won't work because it needs Windows running to do it. All you can do is take the drive out of the laptop and use an adaptor to plug it in to your machine and run programs from there.

I'm a bit bemused really as to how one can "accidentally" run System Recovery considering the amount of warnings you get and the default option saves the user data. You usually have to make a deliberate effort to get the software to trash the drive.

[Neil Jones]

Networking won't work because it needs Windows running to do it. All you can do is take the drive out of the laptop and use an adaptor to plug it in to your machine and run programs from there.

I'm a bit bemused really as to how one can "accidentally" run System Recovery considering the amount of warnings you get and the default option saves the user data. You usually have to make a deliberate effort to get the software to trash the drive.

[a45b22chp]

Why can't a recovery be run from another computer connected via link USB cables? What about Serial to Serial or Serial to USB?

Know any good inexpensive recovery programs?