Windows Mail----Big issues!!!!

neb · Oct 31, 2010

I need some help--please!!!!! I have Vista Home Basic on a Acer Laptop.
I wiped my hard drive clean to have a new H.D. put in. Now, I do not have the enteries that I made on Windows Live Mail Calender. How do I get this info. back (re-install?). Also, I deleted my Contacts and My Documents file. I run my life with these files. I am at a loss!!!! Help would be greaty appreciated. Thanks in advance!!

Lorien · Oct 31, 2010

As far as WLM Calendar, the question is did you save the information online through your ISP or email provider or only on the WLM program itself? If stored online, it's possible the host service may still have some or most of that information (Contacts as well if stored with your online service provider - perhaps at least some if not all of them). You can check your online accounts to see if you can access the information directly through the web sites. If it is there, it's a simple matter of importing it back into the newly-installed programs on your computer. If it is not there, then it probably wasn't saved online and thus cannot be recovered in this manner. It might be worth a call to their tech support to see if they can confirm it is not saved or if save, how to best recover the information - then you'll know for certain.

Files aren't actually deleted until they are overwritten or by formatting (which sounds like what occurred here) - though the latter can sometimes work better than overwriting does (though they're no longer available through conventional methods). Slave it to another PC and run the recovery programs from that PC.

http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/system/fwdatarecovery.html(try Recuva ONLY - do not purchase any products that aren’t free – here or in any of the other links – I’m just suggesting the FREE options and have had problems with some of the commercial ones)

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/diskdigger.html(try this second - if it doesn’t work either chances of recovery are very slim but you can try the other options if you wish)

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/easusdfr.html

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html

http://www.snapfiles.com/downloads/recuva/dlrecuva.html

http://www.softperfect.com/products/filerecovery/

http://techpaul.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/how-to-recover-your-lost-files/

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There are also commercial products that claim to be able to recover data from formatted hard drives, but these cost money and I cannot guarantee they will be any more effective than the free ones above or that they will recover anything at all (and it is unlikely you will be able to get a refund once you've installed and used the products but you can check further and verify the policies and other information). Here's one example (which happens to have a free version which is less effective but "worth the price"):

Recover files from formatted hard drive disk and partition. Format Recovery, Unformat software in Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Windows 7 . (though here, they also offer a free version which you might try first: Free Data Recovery Software to free recover deleted files and recover formatted or corrupt hard drives - EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Free Edition.).

Others can be identified with searches. Here is one such search: recover data from formatted drive in Vista - Bing. If you go this route, be sure you understand the refund policies, the fact that there are no guarantees, and that it is compatible with your system (the one to which the drive will be slaved), and, in essence, be a good shopper.

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Only you can decide if the data is important enough to take the PC to a data recovery expert to recover the files (they will have better programs and equipment to do so than any of us do and than I provided above). Do NOT go to Geek Squad or any of those big store centers - they mostly don't know what they're doing - take it to a data recovery expert. It will cost quite a bit (I mean, a LOT) and they usually offer no guarantees – you typically pay the same price if they recover everything or if they recover nothing. The decision is yours.

I hope this helps.

Good luck!

richc46 · Oct 31, 2010

As an addenum to Loriens sage advice. If you plan to use one of the software products mentioned, use the computer as little as possible until you have attempted the recovery. The more you use and delete from the HD the more difficult recovery becomes.

Windows Mail----Big issues!!!!

neb

My Computer

System One

Lorien

Account Suspended

My Computer

System One

richc46

My Computer

System One