I sent a computer in for a motherboard replacement. I could have done it myself, but i figured why not save some time. The computer came back from the shop with not only the motherboard replaced, but the hard drive reformatted and windows reinstalled as well. After yelling at the guy for his stupidity, I've now settled down to try to recover the lost data. The problem with what i'm using (R-studio) is that it will recover a formatted partition, but because windows has been installed again on top it only sees that one. What are my chances of recovering the data, and what should i use?

Aaah.. same old sad story. When will these maintenance jerks realise that we DO NOT need their "foresight" and that there exist tech savvy people out there who can carry out their own re-formatting tasks.. urggh.. my sympathies ..

Although I doubt this will work have your tried a system restore and see if you can recover that way? If not I would say you are totally screwed because any other method will not work that I can think of, But I would do more to this guy besides yelling at him, I would make his life miserable but spreading bad press about him, heck I would see if you could get the guy fired since He didn't do his job correctly. Although I suspect that there had to be reason, but I don't know if you need to reinstall your Os if you replae the mother board in order for it to kick when you boo a computer.

Did they tell you if they replaced the hard drive as well? I sent my computer in once, and they replaced the whole thing cause they were too lazy to replace the mother board. I tried to recover data and I couldn't find anything, and I asked them and they said they replaced the whole thing.. I was so mad cause I was trying for like 2 hours.

A friend of mine used a partition table recovery program that was freeware like a year ago. I forgot what it was called. See if Active Partition Recovery will help:

http://www.partition-recovery.com/

They have a free download. Use it and see if you can restore back the previous partition setup assuming the geniuses there deleted and created a new partition. My suggestion is to use another hard drive and install Windows on it. Make sure you unplug this hard drive and try not to use it at all until you either recover all your data or all hope of recovery is lost. This program should be able to undo the partition so the data is "visible" again. So after you install Windows on another hard drive shut it down. Plug this hard drive back as a slave drive and run the partition recovery program to try restoring it back.

The tech at the repair shop most likely replaced your motherboard with a different model if he was "forced" to reinstall Windows. A different motherboard chipset can mean disaster even if everything else is the same. I have seen cases where it gives the blue screen of death because of a different type motherboard. Other than that, if your Windows Operating System was corrupt after he replaced the motherboard, he had that reason to reinstall. It's obvious that the techie there didn't know much about this business. He should have first backed up your whole hard drive (Ghost it...) before working anymore on it (assuming it was bootable). After that if he thinks that you still need a reinstall, he should have contacted you first before wiping out your data. Did they make you sign any papers/forms that says it's your responsibility to backup your data before sending it to them?

The partition recovery only gets me a partial recovery. It's not that the tech switched hard disks. I had two partitions on it, and he only formatted the C boot partition. the other one remained intact, with my most important stuff, thank god. but i did switch the motherboard from intel to asus, and it probably gave him a BSOD when he put the new one in. It happens to me a lot, even when i switch a hard disk from an intel 845 to an intel 945. But all you need to do is a repair install. See, I could go spread a lot of bad press about him, but the thing is, almost everyone here will do the exact same thing. I mean, no matter if your computer is running slow, you have a virus, homepage hijacker, insufficient virtual memory, can't connect to the internet, or what have you, their solution is always to reinstall windows. Because for the most part i think they don't know any better - still they should call and confirm it first with me. anyways...
I'll just live and learn, but definitely will remove any hard disks from computers before i send them in next time!!!

Glad the more important stuff were easily recoverable. I know these partition recovery tools may help out more if the partition was just formatted. Guess it was worth a shot to see if it still works after reinstalling Windows on it.

Not only should you take out the hard drive before sending it in for repairs, you should backup the data also if you can. Slave it to another computer to get the data off from that hard drive. You never know....you might plug that puppy in and find out yourself that they changed the motherboard. Not sure if this will corrupt the C: partition, but if it does, you will be going through another headache.

Yes, i did have the motherboard changed. See, originally I bought it with an Intel 845 motherboard, because we were doing a bulk buy and intel was the only model the supplier would give us. But a couple years later, the warranty is finished, the motherboard's burnt out, and i was stuck with this 478pin processor. So rather than go Intel, I bought an ASUS P4V800 board, which also had an AGP slot. The computer store wanted to charge me 5,000 rupees (@ $90) for an Intel 845, but I bought the Asus for $45, and just had it delivered to him and told him to swap the boards.

My first suggestion to data recovery is not to lose it to begin with! I'm all about the backup and redundency! The biggest problem with losing data is that you eventually have to go to some forum and explain all of the mistakes you made in the loss of your data. But if you are dead set on losing your data or if you already lost your data, then you'll need some data recovery software.

Read this:
http://www.astahost.com/disaster-recovery-t3395.html

I think that will help.

vujsa

Yes, thank you. I usually do follow similar rules, but got lax there. Stuff you only want to forget once.