Hi All

There's a machine here at work that had a corrupt windows and lots of important data on it. Someone re-imaged it with a standard ghost image, as they were told there wasn't any data on it. What is the best software tool to use to try and recover the data?

If it has to go as far as sending it away to data recovery people, it ain't worth it.

to clarify, its been imaged over the top of the data? dunno what your chances are then :|

yeah, thats correct. the image just has a std windows build, and the drive has been imaged with it.

R-Studio...? It suposedly can read data even after being overwritten...?

Otherwise, Ontrak Data Recover (company)

Yeh I'd give R-Studio a try, it's f***ing excellent and has saved my life and that of my friends and family on many occasions.

r-studio eh
i'll give it a try
i've also been recommended get data back - anyone used it?

I tried CBL data recovery once. They're based at Redcliffe, but they couldn't get s*** back, although I am not sure if that was my particular situation or they just suck. I believe they sell their software online too.

If Ghost has just re-imaged, and not recreated the partitions completely you might still have a chance, fingers crossed

R-Studio..

the trick is to recover from an install of XP or Server 2000/2003 that doesn't not have the file protection employed in XP's SP2. It took me awhile to realise it, but Service Pack 2 employed levels of data security that hamper efforts for data recovery. Test that out for yourself.

*edit* if you *must* use SP2 then run the recovery in safe-mode

god I wish someone would post some kind of *nix live distro for this kind of task cause Win32 tools take too long and have too many unexpected complications.

also, check out that HDClone program that comes with the UltimateBootCd. it's compatible with most software-raids (even *nix fake raid configs) and far better to make an exact copy of a f***ed image than use the original source when you have a tool that copies deleted data as well. having a drive die on the operating table sucks teh cock (and leads to a very uncomfortable converasation later on with the customer if they came to you because of your good rep), especially when you've had it there for long enough to clone data to a workable form


I sincerely hope you take some of this and put it into work for you.. too few bother to find out for themselves

last edited by koopz at 20:46:50 21/Aug/07