HELP NEEDED

pariah · Post by **pariah** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 6:06 pm

Help needed desperatly

I had a virus attack my pc. I did a re install and all is fine. But before I did this I copied all data I wanted to keep to disc.
However It turns out that this data never got saved to disc. i.m in deep sh1t as all data is required and I need to get it back some how.
Does any one know how or any software that I can use o recover lost data from my system after reinstalling the operating system .?
Please guys help us out here.
PS . If you can help e amil is rick 1960 @tiscali.co.uk
Many Thanks

Rick

Seven Of Nine Firestorm · Mon Nov 03, 2008 6:43 pm

could try booting in safe mode and running virus software else take out HD and give it to a M8 of yours if they have a good antivirus plug up as a slave drive and scan but best do this in a hot swapable drive when the PC is on so that the antivirus software is active when it is plugged in.
could try AVG which is free also mcaffee stinger free and the microsoft malicous software removal tool which is again free also try running spybot

cupasoop · Post by **cupasoop** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 7:02 pm

Try this http://www.recuva.com/

Hankie · Post by **Hankie** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 11:58 pm

If you followed the usual procedure (backup/reformat HD/re-install OS) then you're likely out of luck - the new copy of the OS was probably written over many of the files you wanted to keep. We would need to know the exact steps you took to offer any useful advice.

Chris

pariah · Post by **pariah** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 11:30 am

Many thanks for the help chaps. Cuppa. I.ve started the recuva and it,s found some after a 2 hr deep scan, Some has been retrieved but some of the word documents are now encryped. . Any idea how to uncryped.
Many thanks
Rick

chuxsta · Post by **chuxsta** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 7:54 pm

as already said if you have done a full clean re install the chances of recovering much is very low...

but if its a system restore that a lot of pre built packaged machines have nowadays you should be able to recover most of it..

as for encrypted files,,
how do you know they are encrypted? what kind of message , word for word if possible, do you get when you try to run them?
if you haven't actually encrypted them yourself im more inclined to think that they have been saved as some sort of back up file, or a type of temp file with all the relevant data but in a way that they are smaller to take up less space or such.
are the word docs still saved as filename.doc or docx or some variation of the word doc after the filename.doc

if they are not you could try changing the suffix of the file to .doc
or even .txt ( right click the file go to rename file then type in what you want to call it with .txt or .doc at the end of it. filename.txt or filename.doc, obviously replace filename with your files name. )
with txt as the suffix you will be able to open it in wordpad or note pad. this is presuming that you have not got any special formating in the document such as fancy grapics pictures or borders....