hello Friends..Pls i have been using windows vista premium on my acer aspire, until one day, it crashed. so I had to use the facrory recovery disc which I created earlier on to recover the system and then I had to upgrade it from the vista to Windows 7 ultimate.. meanwhile all my documents, word, pdf, pictures and music had been lost.. and I really need all of these files.. please is there any way or any software that I can use to effectively recover all my lost documents and files ,..please I need help.. thanks a lot in advance...

hi kaycee,

im sorry to hear that you had problems with your computer and had to do factory restore.

usually, factor restores would ask you to perform a backup first. were you asked to do a backup?

backups would usually be saved on a different partition other than the C drive.

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open My Computer and check for other drives/partitions and see if the backups are there. a system restore typically deletes all your programs and documents. i does this to revert back to the guranteed working factory settings.

if the files are not there, we might need to use data recovery programs - like recuva http://www.syschat.com/recover-and-u...cuva-6665.html

remember, if the files are indeed "gone" and net present anywhere in the hard drive, its best to turn off your computer, detach the hard disk, put it in an enclosure, plug the enclosure into a good and working computer. this way your hard disk is set as a removable drive.

on the working computer, install Recuva. Run Recuva on the enclosed hard dis. this way, Recuva will try to scan your enclosed hard drive and see what files it can restore.

Remember to restore the found files on the hard drive of the working computer. DO NOT restore the found files in the same hard drive that is in the enclosure itself.

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i personally hope you find your backup files on another partition. this should be easier and less of a hassle. if the files are indeede nowhere to be found, we can try the Recuva solution. feel free to post here your progress on tackling this problem.

regards and goodluck!

Friend.. thanks a lot for that useful information.. I want to say that I can't remember vividly if the system told me to do any backup. am not sure. but may be it did. let me also state that the computer is a laptop.. so would that technic work with laptops? or do I need to loosen the laptop hard disk and bring it out? also, it's presently running windows 7 now.. ?? thanks..

hi kaycee,

yes, Recuva works for all types of hard drives (desktop or laptop) and even usb flash drives.

you will an enclosure for your laptop's hard drive



basically you need to detach the laptop hard drive and insert it into the enclosure. then connect the enclosure's usb cable to a working computer where Recuva is installed.

use Recuva to scan the hard drive inside the enclosure.

again, reminder that if you have found the files that you want to restore, choose a restore location that is NOT on the enclosed hard drive.


***Before purchasing a hard drive enclosure, you need to check if your hard disk is a "IDE" or "SATA" type.


purchase a "2.5 enclosure" that is for the type of your hard drive (IDE or SATA).

hope this helps

thanks a lot, I shall go look for an enclosure for my laptop hard disk and buy... I guess I should detatch it first from the laptop so I can determine if it's SATA or IDE.. cos during post or in bios, it has an option to select either SATA or IDE... thanks a lot for these explanation.. I shall tell u my result...