System Recovery and Data Loss

After downloading free windows updates, my Toshiba Sattelite with Windows XP
Media Centre Edition crashed. I could not restart windows, because a
component winsrv c0000135 (or something like that) could not be found. The
only way I could come up with anything other than that error message was to
use my product recovery DVD-ROM. My data is gone, and I have not made a
back-up lately. Is there any way to find any of the old files??? Please help.

Yes there is, but for a price. Theres a program called FIle Scavenger
that can recover lost files etc. i found it very useful when one of my
drives decided to forget what format it was. you can search for the
files in the free version but you can't recover them unfortunately
unless you go pay. hopefully this helps somewhat.

A while ago, I split my hard disk into two partitions - one for the system
and one for data. I haven't had this kind of problem since then, and would
recommend it. I use 30Gb for the system and the rest of my 200Gb disk for
data, including recorded TV, music, photos etc.

I use a free copy of Paragon hard disk manager (it came on the front of a PC
mag) to manage the partitions (eg
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/hdmanager8/index). Alternatively, I would
suggest partitioning at the time of rebuild.

When you have to rebuild your system partition, the data just sits there, on
the other partition, safe and sound.

Alternatively, disk costs are so low now, you may think it is better to buy
a second disk.

Obviously, if your hard disk dies, you are still knackered. So you still
need to backup, and (given the nature of MCE) I would feel even happier with
a system image tool (eg Ghost, and people speak very highly of Acronis
TrueImage). But now I'm wandering into the position of 'do as I say, not as I
do', so I had better shut up.







"Seeker" wrote:

You may try by restoring the computer to the earlier date if it gives you
the Option. In all reality the data is lost.
--
''''Swami''''

"Seeker" wrote:

Not quite.. File Scavenger looks where WIndows Explorer doesn't. It
looks on the HD itself rather than looking at the ToC [Table Of
Contents] so theres a hugh chance the datas still there, just you
havent found it yet. see http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm