Expert: Carolyn Meinel - 8/1/2008

Question
My system crashed.  I used the operating system disk to re-install and everything (as far as I know) that was on the original system has been saved to c:\mybackup.  I have found the file, but I have no idea how to "re-activiate/re-install" all these programs and files.  Can you walk me through it...please?  THANK YOU!

Answer
Please help me with more information. When you say you saved everything to C:/mybackup, do you mean all your backups were on the C drive? If so, they got deleted when you reinstalled your operating system.

If this is the case, DON'T PANIC. Even after reformatting your data might be recoverable at a reasonable cost, but only if they are on a disk location that has not been overwritten by the new installation. There is a good chance that they haven't been overwritten yet.

If this is the case, your best bet is to look in your Yellow Pages for a local company specializing in data recovery, as this will take specialized software to recover your data. If they want a ridiculous amount of money, check out www.diskinternals.com/ntfs-recovery/ for an alternative. I'm assuming you use Windows XP or Vista and the NTFS file system. On the other hand, some home computers use a FAT file system. If this is your case, you can try www.restorer2000.com as an example. However, I'm concerned that trying to do it yourself without being an expert, you might make things worse.  

If, however, you saved your backups to another drive or to removable media such as CDs or DVDs, please let me know. Reinstallation should be much simpler in this case.