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Startup Repair Offline / Lost data

Started by k7188 , Jul 13 2015 02:09 PM
system restore lost data startup repair offline

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#1
k7188
Posted 13 July 2015 - 02:09 PM

k7188

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Hi guys, new to the forums and in need of some help.
 
I was called in to look at my parents PC despite being no expert myself. Windows was unable to boot and was giving a message along the lines of it was unable to access the device?!. The given options were to try booting Windows 7 again (which brought me back to the same point) or to go to System Restore. Having already been unable to use a system repair disk after receiving the message 'startuprepairoffline', I tried System Restore.
 
Mistakenly I thought it would give me the option to set the system back to a previous date but it was actually going to reinstall the OS. I only realised this after I had started the restore so I turned the system off by holding the power button as I didn't want my files to be lost. I thought my next best bet would be to connect the PC hard drive to my laptop, copying across the files and resuming the System Restore for a fresh install. 
 
When I took out the hard drive and connected it to my laptop I couldn't find any of the files. In fact, 142GB of the 143GB drive appeared to be free! So I'm wondering what has happened to the data as all folders on the drive are empty. Could the system restore process have deleted the files (or file table) in the short time it was running? And is there a way to recover them?
 
Thanks in advance (and apologies for the long post)

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#2
Ztruker
Posted 13 July 2015 - 03:35 PM

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Sounds like a corrupted file system, run chkdsk /r against the drive.

 

 

For instance, is the drive is showing up as E: then  chkdsk e: /r

 

Wait for it to complete/ Can take an hour or more depending on the size of the drive.


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#3
AlicePhoebe
Posted 14 July 2015 - 01:37 AM

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Stopped using this drive the moment you discovered the loss. try this

http://ccm.net/faq/5...-system-restore

Or Try the third-party tool EaseUS

http://www.easeus.co...tem-restore.htm


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