Deleted a backup of Windows and need help getting it back
G'day,
I have been juggling data around on my computer and have screwed up.
Firstly I have a 1 TB internal hard drive and a 630 GB external hard drive.
I originally had my internal hard drive partitioned with 215 GB at the end and the rest my main partition with Windows Vista Ultimate and all my files and other stuff.
On the 215 GB partition I had a backup of my computer, or rather of how my computer used to be. It wasn't until after I had made made the backup and formatted my hard drive due to a problem that resulted in me wanted to reload the whole thing from the beginning that I learned that a windows made complete PC restore had to be on a different Hard drive, not just a different partition.
I kept the backup for the day that I could afford another hard drive to load it on too. In the mean time I reloaded Windows, Office, MSN and a few other basic things to use while I waited. It took me a while to get the hard drive and I kept adding Stuff to my computer and set something up that I hadn't been able to setup before.
When I got the hard drive, I wanted to keep my current setting but wanted all my old files and other stuff back. I also wanted to make my external hard drive my bootable hard drive so I could remove it of a night so my kids couldn't use the computer (yes I could have used passwords but I also wanted to keep it as simple as I could for my partner, that and I’m kind of lazy and couldn't be bothered putting in a password each time I turned on the computer), and also so I could take it to my mother-in-laws to fix her computer with my stuff rather than have to download and install everything on to her computer.
So I Have four partitions on two hard drives (C:, D:, N:, O: ) (Windows on C:, Backup on D: )
My first thought was to load the backup onto N: transport all my wanted files over to C:, format N:, Clone C: to N:, format C: and D: and finally Backup N: on D: (O: wasn't made yet)
This failed due to Windows not letting the backup load to N: due to it coming from C: (I think). Naturally I tried to change the drive letters but couldn't change C: so was a dead end.
This is where the juggling comes in. I wasn't sure if the backup could be cut and pasted and didn't want to try in case it screwed up. So I created an image of D: (using Macrium Reflect (freeware)) on N: and loaded it to O: and tested if this would restore windows still. It did do I formatted D: and shrank C: (first in Computer Management but this left about 200 GB of free space so I shrank it further using EASEUS Partition Master 4.0 Home Edition (freeware)) down and added the extra space to D:. I then created an image of C: (again using Macrium Reflect (freeware)) on D:.
I had then planed to load the image to N:, Delete D: and expand C: to the entire drive, do the complete PC restore to C: from O:, format O:, copy and paste all my file from C: to N:, format C:, copy all my files from N: that didn't have anything to do with Windows, my anti-virus program or any other "basic" programs to C: and then I would be done.
But my N: was just a bit too small. The backup files didn't take up all of O: so I tried to shrink the partition so it had just enough room for the backup, and then move it to the end of the hard drive (shrinking and moving using EASEUS Partition Master 4.0 Home Edition (freeware)). But while doing this my computer froze and left O: as RAW format instead of NTFS (which by the way is the format of all my drives). In a panic I deleted O: then realised I had got rid of the PC complete restore backup.
I tried several freeware file recovery and partition recovery programs (and no I only ever loaded them to C: ) to get these files back but have had no luck.
The closest I have gotten to finding it was using ParetoLogic Data Recovery where it found the backup in the unmounted area but wouldn’t let me recover them without buying the full program.
A lot of the programs I was trying wouldn’t do anything because the drive wasn’t mounted and they would only look in places that had a drive letter. So I recreated O: thinking that the new partition information would just overwrite the old partition information because it was the same size and all. This way the programs that wanted a drive letter to look for files would have one.
None of the program I have downloaded has worked for me so far but they have only been freeware because I don’t really have much money and am trying not to spend any if it can be helped.
As far as I can tell I have two copies one on D: and one on O: (but not holding my breath for the one on O: but the one on D: should be intact because I expanded it backward before making the image of C: on it and I expanded it more in size than the size of the image, a lot more) and I should have a copy of the image on N: since nothing has been loaded on to it since.
I would be grateful for any help and suggestions.
And sorry the post was so long, most of the information is probably useless but I thought this way no one should need to ask me questions like what programs did I use and stuff like that.
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