Help Required! (File Recovery)

[Frostmagus777]

Hello, Ive been a mapmaker for some time now, and about 3/4 of a year ago i was working on my best project, only to drop my laptop and damaged the hardrive, with no backups, i had nothing left *Violin Plays*. I thought the only way i could get my map back is to pay alot of money to get the hard drive into an enclosure and have the file extracted. I hosted the map to some friends so they could test it (Locked ofc), however they have all uninstalled the game, and their copies of my map have been lost, not as lost as my copy though. Ive installed a few trial file recovery programs on one of my friend's computer who had a copy of the map. But the program doesnt find anything. Im literally stuck in a hole on this one and have no idea what to do, if their is anything like good software that you can reccomend or other ways to get my map back, i would be very greatfull, im really looking forward to finishing my map, it was almost ready for publishing. Thanks

 

[RED BARON]

First of all introduce yourself to Hive -> introduction tread

Anyway to me it seems like the only idea would be to pay the money to get it extractet as youself mentioned (but what did that result in, you never said)

And an advice to nexttime: always take backups (bet you know now.)

 

[Frostmagus777]

Im not actually going to send my old hard drive off to a company who have to take it into a dust free enclosure and extract stuff off it. It would be too expensive, apparantly it would cost like £150 which i think is worth it for the time i put into it, but its still expensive and my logical side tells me to find something cheaper to do. Which takes me to a software based solution, which i have been looking into but no success yet. Thats why im looking to the hive for guidence

 

[GST_Nemisis]

problem is, if your disk cannot read/write on its own and must be read with special equipment it would be impossible to do without some sort of enclosure hardware.

have you tried mounting it in another machine and seeing if you can read of it using a boot CD like NTFS dos? theres a great CD called Hirens boot CD which had loads of file recovery and extraction software, and thats probably your best bet, but if you cant read and write from the drive it wont matter how good the software is.

 

[Frostmagus777]

Ive tried mounting it by taking the cables from an external hard drive and hooking it up to mine, but the comp doesnt even recognise its there. Ive taken it to two companies who do that sort of thing who said only way is an enclosure. Thats why im looking to a software solution, to try out on my friends PC who had a copy of the map before he uninstalled w3. Any reccomended software? or other solutions? :S

 

[Frostmagus777]

I Installed some file recovery software on one of the laptops which tested my map, but no luck. Now im trying it on another, there was 3 testers all together. Hopefully I will see some results otherwise im £150 out of pocket :S

 

[RED BARON]

Inded tradic, But I impressed by your will to make your map survive. Sounds like it will be worth playing.

 

[GST_Nemisis]

well, if your pc cant read it when mounted externally it sounds like its dead and an enclosure is the only way, because softwares not gunna help if the hardware isnt working.

 

[Frostmagus777]

But I hosted the map for testing on a LAN with my friends, so they all have a locked copy, and maybe an unlocked, i cant remember. My hardrive is dead, my friend's ones are not, but they uninstalled the game, so ive been trying to find a software solution for their systems so that i can recover it on their systems instead of paying for the hard drive to be disected.

But if anyboy can reccomend good file recovery software or a company that specialises in data recovery, and have good prices, and are located in england. Then please post them Thanks for the support so far

 

[ZypherXII]

Data recovery by professionals is not cheap. I remember hearing about these guys:
http://www.datarecoveryuk.co.uk/

Unfortunately it'll cost you at least 200 pounds there.

 

[GST_Nemisis]

ok, let me explain how software recovery works, in (soft of) simple terms:

Data is written to your hard drive in segments, when you delete a file in windows, the containing that file segment is made to look "invisible" as if it is blank and ready to be written over. however, if the segment is not written over, the data will still exist on that segment, windows just "pretends" that it isnt there. it is then possible to use file recovery software to specially access the segment and take any data from that segment and save it to a CD or usb stick or whatever. but, if the segment is written over, that data will be lost for ever. the problem is that to recover a file you deleted, you need to recover it straight away, because the segments are written over very quickly. so if they have used their computer for about a week or so after the game was uninstalled, chances of recovery go to around 0.0001%, at best.

i gotta be honest with you, no matter how good the recovery software is, if the segment has been written over, the data is gone.

 

[Frostmagus777]

Ahh ok, that clears up alot of questions, like why my friends didnt have it in their HD graveyards after a year. Thanks you but now im stuck between remaking it or paying. i really cant be arsed to remake, as it toook me months. on the other hand 200 pounds is expensive.

 

[brad.dude03]

There is only so much physical space on a harddrive. When a file gets deleted, the physical space is reallocated to new data. That's the problem with data recovery. Once the location has been overwritten, the file cannot be recovered because it's been replaced with your new data. Chances are you wont find anything on there from a quarter of a year ago, though if you haven't been using this harddrive, there is still a chance that the data will be there if you can get it repaired.

 

[Frostmagus777]

Thanks again for the info, its really cleared up alot of issues, all of my friends didnt have the map, so it looks like the only copy is on my dead hardrive. Ill have to decide whether or not to pay or remake the map. Im on holiday at the moment, so i wont be able to make that decision here, so when im back home il let you all know what im going to do.

 

[Frostmagus777]

Ive decided not to sort the hard drive out just now, and I have started a campaign, which should keep me busy for a while.

 

[Frostmagus777]

Ive decided to remake the Four Hunters, it should take me a while, but i really dont want to spend all that money, should be done in 6/8 months. Post me if you are interested in the map at all, and would like updates etc.