3 days of despair with happy ending on the 4th

Four days ago, while using my computer, an error message popped up. It said windows encountered an error and needs to restart. So I clicked ok and off it went to restart. It didn’t, it went all the way to “windows starting” then black. I’m pretty decent with handling computer issues but this “Black screen of death” was new to me. Having read and tried various “fixes” from KB articles with no success, I pulled out the HD and tried to get my data. That was a no go, I could access the drive but not the info. Whatever, I got backups of backups so I went to reformatted and reinstall windows.

When it came time to restore my data, my backups had recent dates but the data was all from a year ago….OMG…I almost had a heart attack!!! So I dug out a different set of backups. Data a bit more recent but still too old. I’m losing a ton of data, my Access database I built from scratch, my Lightroom presets. ALL gone. While digging through backups, another error message this one was along the lines of HD error back up and replace drive. Restart and box won’t get past POST. Pulled out the drive with Windows installed and tried to boot from CD, same error in POST (HD failure). Finally found the “busted” drive pulled it out and got past POST.

So now I’m sitting on a box that’s good to go, but no data. Thinking about the “lost” data I was dreading the amount of work and research I happened to come across this : http://www.quetek.com that offers a program called File Scavenger. Simple enough website, I’ve never heard of the company or program before but after reading the info on the site, this program should be just what I need. The $50 price tag is reasonable if it works. As a pessimist I always doubt stuff and even more so about buyin stuff online. But hey, the download is free, it’s fully functional (up to a certain amount of data restored). So I went ahead with testing it.

Download, install, ran the easiest test. The whole process was easy but it didn’t find anything I needed. Ran the more thorough test and boy did it find a lotta stuff. Keep in mind my drive was formatted and all programs needed were reinstalled. After digging throught the folders, I FOUND IT ALL !

WITH this sudden surge of excitement I went to get my credit card, paid for the license, entered it and let the program get my data. Easy as 1,2,3 !

File Scavenger by QueTek works. Don’t hesitate to get this program!

Note: I installed the program on a different (fully functional) computer, the reformatted/reloaded HD was put in an external enclosure and connected via USB. File Scavenger scanned the drive and saved what I marked to the computer’s drive.

Once that was done, I put the reformmated drive back into its original computer, turned it on Windows fired up, all the reloaded software worked too.

File Scavenger works and is reasonably priced. If you need it, get it!

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