Recovering missing files after reinstalling windows
Sfariah D
Posts: 26,557
My mum’s computer would not start. After several tries to recover computer, I had to reinstall windows. Now when I went to look for her old files, they were not there. I know there are some open source file recovery utilities I can put on a usb drive. My mum just found a 2GB thumb drive that she forgot she had. Is that big enough to install an open source file recovery utility to see if I can recover the info.
I want to also put her (and myself) into better backing up habits. What do you recommend?
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Have you checked the windows.old folder, assuming you didn't reformat the drive?
Yes I did not think I reformatted the drive. The document folder there was empty.
Ah, then I think your only option would be a file recovery tool - but if you have no prior experience with such tools I would suggest getting help.
Definitely worth doing some research first, but the main points:
1) Don't download anything to that computer (or if you have no choice, download to a removable drive).
2) If possible download the software on anothe computer and use that to put it onto a USB drive.
3) Recover files to a different drive (internal or USB).
4) Don't go with any solution that requires you to install anything on the computer with the missing files.
Different programs have different success rates with files. I've used two of these in the past:
https://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizardpro/ (Demo will search for files and tell you if they are recoverable, but won't let you recover without the paid for version).
http://www.puransoftware.com/File-Recovery.html (Free for personal use)
I currently have Puran File Recovery installed on my machine, but can't remember why. It can be installed to usb.
Also, a comparison of various recovery tools here: https://www.digitalcitizen.life/file-recovery-tools-recuva-restoration-softperfect-pc-inspector-diskdigger
Final point: If the data is really important and irreplacable, it's worth paying someone to recover it.
EDIT: Recuva is another recovery program that runs from USB. If you use it, be sure to download on another computer so there is no risk of overwriting the missing files. There is also a forum at that site where you might be able to get more specialised advice.
Its kind of a related thing, I bought a new pc win 10. I then went into my daz account and downloaded Install Manager and then installed everything. I had been using 4.9 version on other pc but IM installed 4.1version on new pc. Why so and if I were to now install 4.9 on new pc would it simply replace the 4.1 version? But nothing is simple in the city of Daz
I assume you mean 4.10, not 4.1. If you don't have a back-up of the 4.9 installer then you will not be able to reisntall it; if you do you could pop it into the Downloads folder, run DIM in Offline mode, and isntall it - thoughI'm not sure why you would want to.
On an iray tutorial it recommended in render settings to only check GPU and not CPU for photorreal and interactive devices. 4.9 had both options but 4.10 has just has CPU selection. I could no longer follow the tutorial at that point. I mean I'm using the 4.10 app and its okay for what I do, but that missing object seems like it might be a systemic part of the app, makes we wonder what else is lacking compared to 4.9.
What GPU do you have?
intel R UHD graphics 630 maybe not showing as option because its integrated?
If that's the only GPU you have (some systems have two) then you won't be able to use the GPU for Iray - only (some) nVidia GPUs have the necessary CUDA cores.
Assuming you have stuff you can't afford to loose, here are a few random suggestions:
Test your backups. When you lost everything is a bad time to find out that your backup failed or your backup device is no longer compatible with your current hardware/software or you didn't back up some files you didn't know about that you needed. I have a utility that does a byte-by-byte comparison of files, which has already saved me once when I had some memory going bad and backups were being corrupted. The files still looked ok, and most were, but a few were off by a byte here and there. Luckily I found out right when I made the backup, and was able to fix the issue and do the backup again correctly, so nothing got lost. Years ago a friend made a backup using some Windows backup utility then installed a new version of Windows, and it turned out the new backup utility wasn't compatible with the old one. DAZ Studio backups are (or at least were) non-obvious if you want to be sure you got everything (the database, your content directory mappings, your GUI layout, etc).
Having access to a second PC may be extremely helpful in testing backups (such as making sure DS or any application works from your backups the way you think.). It doesn't have to be a good PC. It could be your old one, or an old junker you got from somebody cleaning out their attic that can't even run half the software you own and is too slow to be useable, but as long as it is capable of at least loading your software it might still be good for testing your process once before you are certain you are backing up the right stuff, and correcting your backup process.
Have multiple backups. A backup is useless if you erase it to make space for a backup and then something goes wrong, or something happens to your entire PC while you are making the backup. I know of a place where every day (or possibly week, I forget which) an operator put in the backup tape and ran the script to copy all the files from the computer onto it. Every time they had a backup from the time before. One day something went wrong and they actually needed to recover from the backup, so the operator grabbed the backup tape and popped it in and ran the script... which wrote the messed-up files over the top of the good backed-up files. If that was your only backup, now you have nothing. whee!
Have an offsite backup if you are worried about fire / natural disaster / theft.
Generational backups may be of value. Most files that I have seen people loose in the past have been not from hardware failures, but because somebody deleted the wrong file, and didn't notice right away. If you make a backup of everything currently on your PC, your backup is missing that file too because you "backed up" that change of deleting a file. If you saved an old backup from prior to that, although it may not have recent stuff, you might still be able to get your lost file/folder back. If you have an always-on backup solution that replaces the old backup with a new one every day, that would be super-useless in this scenario.
Research your choice of backup option. CDs/DVDs might go bad, I can't remember if there was some possibility of USB drives or SSDs loosing data if not periodically powered up or not (conflicting info online), drive formats may fall out of favor and thus may be an expensive long-term option if you keep throwing them out and buying the newest replacement technology or it's gone (I had to help somebody restore some photos from a floppy disk once, which complicated the process a bit), there might be some concern about hard drive controllers changing, etc.
Write down the process of backing up and recovering. Nobody ever takes my advice on this one, but every time somebody gets or moves to a new PC they're angry and frustrated because none of their programs work the way they used to, they can't find their desktop shortcuts or internet explorer favorites or email settings or custom menu options, or etc. Just write it all down, then when you need to recover from your backups, just follow your own instructio1ns and everything work work great.
Actually follow through and do it. Perhaps the hardest step for some people.