I'm new here and I do hope I'm putting this in the right place.
last week while using my husbands laptop I got a virus of some sorts and while attempting to repair the file I made matters worse. I ended up having to use the repair disk, which fixed the problem, but now my hisbands files are of course gone, and without a back up( i know stupid right?) anyway what I'm wanting to do is RETRIEVE those lost files, and I have found some free software to do it, but I'm not real sure it will do what i want.
of course i cant go out and buy what i need, because then i will have to tell him the stupid thing i did
so i GUESS my question is, is there a safe way to do this, or is this free software what i need
or will it simply make matters worse
please help- my kids cant grow up without a mom (kidding, i think)
http://www.dtidata.com/ntfs_partition_repair.htm
many many thanks in advance!With any partition recovery tool, you run the risk of making matters even worse. I think you may find that your best bet is to come clean, and than try to fix it. If the data is valuable, a professional data recovery service may be your best bet. Most data recovery tools are difficult to use, and if you accidentally recover files he meant to delete, that will give you away, too.
If you do try to save the files yourself, you can try http://www.pcinspector.de/default.htm?Language=1
It is freeware, and works fairly well.
Good Luckif by repair disk you mean the recovery CD bundled with a lot of laptops/desktops...

that is not good at all. The files weren't deleted, the ENTIRE drive was repartitioned by the recovery program.
I've always been against those things, they have extremely LIMITED use, I think OEM's should simply include a Windows CD and a CD of the drivers for the computers parts, rather then a CD that reverts the computer back to factory settings, which just so happens to include all the trial programs and crud they enjoy hassling people with.


As far as I know there aren't many programs that can recover data after a repartition/reformat, much less after data (XP itself) has been placed in them. The few that do exist are quite expensive I believe.


I have to agree with HMAR, you should come clean, maybe he'll know what to do.
Remember the longer you delay the less chance of getting any of his files back

Tip for the future! before using a Recovery CD, back-up ALL data that you want to keep! they WIPE EVERYTHING that exists on the HD- was there not a warning?...