Laptop recovery?

swanseamale47

swanseamale47

Suspended / Banned
Messages
10,876
Name
wayne clarke
Edit My Images
Yes
My girlfriends laptop was stolen last week, it's turned up in a local second hand shop so we got it back ok, one problem is they wiped it so I'm now expected to recover all her pics and music.
Now at this stage I don't now exactly what they have done to "wipe" it, assuming they have just formatted it what the best option to try and recover her images?
I'm going to call in and see them on monday and ask what they have done, but I'm hoping they couldn't be bothered to use something that overwrites the drive, if they have is there realisticly any hope of recovering anything? without spending a fortune.
Many thanks. Wayne
 
Check out file scavenger at http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm it claims to be able to recover data from a reformatted drive.

I have never had the misfortune to need to use such a tool, so I can't offer any real world experience with this.

Good luck, I hope you manage to recover everything.
 
Depends on what they have used to wipe it really, if its just a standard drive format then a decent file recovery program should work (may have to pay for a decent one, ive never used one so cant comment)

If they have used something stronger to wipe it like a program which overwrites the drive sectors to make sure its unrecoverable then you may be out of luck
 
i've recoverd data before from formtatted drives, generally, i've managed to retrieve around 70% of files.

are you going to attempt this ?
 
It's probably talking to a local computer repair shop to see if they can help.

I had a hard drive failure and a local one here charged me £40 to retrieve the data from it.
 
I'll probably try and recover it myself (assuming they haven't done anything clever) she cant afford to pay for professional recovery, and while shes lost a lot of photos theres no wedding or vital stuff there, just sentimental pics.
I don't mind forking out a few quid for software though.
Thanks Wayne
 
If they did a quick format you should get back a good lot of the stuff.

A full format is a different story.
 
swanseamale47 said:
I'll probably try and recover it myself (assuming they haven't done anything clever) she cant afford to pay for professional recovery, and while shes lost a lot of photos theres no wedding or vital stuff there, just sentimental pics.
I don't mind forking out a few quid for software though.
Thanks Wayne
Click to expand...

Before you pay for something, try http://www.piriform.com/recuva. It's free, good and simple to use.
 
Never had to recover, but I do hope you manage to get those photos back :thumbs:
 
UPDATE.
I went to the shop today to collect said laptop and find out exactly what they had done to it, only to find they had sold the bloody thing knowing full well it was stolen property. They said they will try and get it back but somehow I'm not hopefull, I think they knew it was worth a lot more than they paid for it (£100) and wanted to make a profit.
To say I'm annoyed is putting it mildly! I come close to clobbering the bloke in the shop, probably should have.
Many thanks for all the help and advice. Wayne
 
swanseamale47 said:
UPDATE.
I went to the shop today to collect said laptop and find out exactly what they had done to it, only to find they had sold the bloody thing knowing full well it was stolen property. They said they will try and get it back but somehow I'm not hopefull, I think they knew it was worth a lot more than they paid for it (£100) and wanted to make a profit.
To say I'm annoyed is putting it mildly! I come close to clobbering the bloke in the shop, probably should have.
Many thanks for all the help and advice. Wayne
Click to expand...

selling stolen property, im sure the police would like to know about that..
 
They'll have to get it back pretty sharpish because surely someone buying a second laptop that's been wiped will put a new OS on it straight away and start installing software on it. Once this is done I assume you'll have very little chance of recovering anything.
 
swanseamale47 said:
UPDATE.
I went to the shop today to collect said laptop and find out exactly what they had done to it, only to find they had sold the bloody thing knowing full well it was stolen property. They said they will try and get it back but somehow I'm not hopefull, I think they knew it was worth a lot more than they paid for it (£100) and wanted to make a profit.
To say I'm annoyed is putting it mildly! I come close to clobbering the bloke in the shop, probably should have.
Many thanks for all the help and advice. Wayne
Click to expand...

Time for the police me thinks?
 
-Rob- said:
They'll have to get it back pretty sharpish because surely someone buying a second laptop that's been wiped will put a new OS on it straight away and start installing software on it. Once this is done I assume you'll have very little chance of recovering anything.
Click to expand...

He should still be able to recover the stuff that's not been overwritten by the OS and new software installs. The amount that's recoverable will start to plummet once stuff is put back onto the drive, but it's still worth having a go as anything is better than nothing.
 
Jim.R said:
He should still be able to recover the stuff that's not been overwritten by the OS and new software installs. The amount that's recoverable will start to plummet once stuff is put back onto the drive, but it's still worth having a go as anything is better than nothing.
Click to expand...

true.. it would be hit and miss though depending on how much data there was of his and whether install procedure managed to dump right on top of it.. pot luck really..
 
neil_g said:
true.. it would be hit and miss though depending on how much data there was of his and whether install procedure managed to dump right on top of it.. pot luck really..
Click to expand...

It's made worse by the fact that files a not generally written contiguously but spread all over the disk, unless you're religious about defragging your HDD.
I did once however manage to re-partition, re-format and then re-install XP on one of my old PCs, only to realise that one of the partitions I'd deleted was the wrong one and actually contained all my music and video! Incredibly, the recovery software managed to recover everything, so there is always some hope of getting stuff back, but it's far from guarenteed!
 
Police and demand that they pay for a new machine. Small claims court and you will win. They knew it was your property and sold it anyway. I'd be onto the local newspapers as well.

Is it a chain like cash converters or a single place? These places generally try to stay on the right side of the police, so if a chain I would expect them to cough up without too much problem.

TBH I would have been straight round to get it, not leaving it with them over the weekend.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top