HarryWeezer Posted January 5, 2011 Member ID: 20166 Group: ***- Inactive Clan Members Followers: 40 Topic Count: 611 Topics Per Day: 0.16 Content Count: 7652 Content Per Day: 1.98 Reputation: 7228 Achievement Points: 53663 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 36 Joined: 10/04/13 Status: Offline Last Seen: March 16 Birthday: 10/16/1946 Device: Windows Share Posted January 5, 2011 We use all Dell systems and the last batch our IT department bought last year were ordered with XP Professional - I got one when my previous system died. That piece of shit Outlook Express started acting up as it always does eventually, popping up that Compact Messages warning that never goes away, and which keeps coming back because every time you try to compact messages, it complains that some folders are in use. So I rebooted and hit F8 and expecting to see the screen to allow me to boot in safe mode so I could compact folders without something interfering with it. But that screen wasn't there - it said said Windows Vista, although the OS is XP. So, I launched MSCONFIG, clicked the boot tab and instructed the system to reboot into safe mode, which it did: to a login screen. This is a local machine login, different than my network login, but the assholes in IT who configured this box couldn't remember what password they set for it. So one of them had the bright idea of booting from an XP install CD, launching the Recovery Console, and replacing the boot sector with the default. Only, he replaced a boot sector on a SATA NTFS drive with a default FAT32 boot sector. The result: the file system on my hard drive was instantly wiped and along with it, 20-plus years of budgets, contracts, shitloads of e-mail folders containing critical information, etc. and etc. The feeling I got when I recognized that I had just lost everything was very much like my first day back in country from Vietnam, in Boston where I went because my mother was dying at a hospital there. It was July 3, 1969, and I instantly hit the dirt when someone threw a bunch of firecrackers in back of me. I should have recognized what might happen, but shit, they don't pay to know this stuff but they DO pay these assholes to know it. We have network backup but the last time they backed me up was four months ago. So I've lost irreplaceable information, including next year's operating budget that represented three weeks of work. I haven't yet decided how I'm going to kill this bastard. I'm considering either doing something with a rusty lineoleum knife, or getting medieval on his ass with a blowtorch and a pair of pliers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
kilroy45xi Posted January 5, 2011 Member ID: 105 Group: **- Inactive Registered Users Followers: 1 Topic Count: 50 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 603 Content Per Day: 0.11 Reputation: 2 Achievement Points: 3524 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/02/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: Never Share Posted January 5, 2011 WE NEED A FUCKING EDITOR..!!!!!!!! GET TO THE FUCKIN POINT...LMAO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YellowSnow Posted January 5, 2011 Member ID: 14 Group: ***- Inactive Clan Members Followers: 37 Topic Count: 90 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 1148 Content Per Day: 0.21 Reputation: 744 Achievement Points: 8230 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 1 Joined: 09/01/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: June 25, 2021 Birthday: 03/30/1969 Share Posted January 5, 2011 killroy45xi WE NEED A FUCKING EDITOR..!!!!!!!! GET TO THE FUCKIN POINT...LMAO LMAO.. (BLA-BLA-BLA.......KILL SOMEONE.....) There killroy hope that helps.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
NickTheGrip Posted January 5, 2011 Member ID: 177 Group: ***- Inactive Clan Members Followers: 16 Topic Count: 145 Topics Per Day: 0.03 Content Count: 1669 Content Per Day: 0.31 Reputation: 281 Achievement Points: 10581 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 1 Joined: 09/02/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: June 27, 2023 Birthday: 05/08/1961 Device: iPhone Share Posted January 5, 2011 Can't you have the disk recovered using one of the proprietary recovery programs and starting the computer up with something like BART PE, or running BOOTMASTER or FIXBOOT. I would have thought your IT guys would know that - bunch of worthless twats. Never used it myself, but it would be worth a shot - what do you have to lose except your sanity and I think that would be mostly gone by now in your predicament http://bootmaster.filerecovery.biz/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
Bama Posted January 5, 2011 Member ID: 19 Group: ***- Inactive Clan Members Followers: 101 Topic Count: 318 Topics Per Day: 0.06 Content Count: 4444 Content Per Day: 0.83 Reputation: 2763 Achievement Points: 29399 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 7 Joined: 09/01/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: March 11 Birthday: 02/29/1968 Device: iPhone Share Posted January 5, 2011 Yes, you should be able to recover the files with a program like Nick is talking about. The only thing the IT guy did was replace the boot sector, which makes the files under old boot invisible. I am sure you probably know all that anyway, but I've had good luck recovering files that my drive 'couldn't see'. Lemme know if I can be of any help to ya. If the IT guy did what you describe, he will be clueless as to how to help you recover the files. DON'T let him touch the computer again. The more you boot up and use it, the more likely you are to overwrite something important that you won't be able to recover. http://findandmount.com/ This has helped me loads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
BOILERDONXI Posted January 5, 2011 Member ID: 187 Group: **- Inactive Registered Users Followers: 22 Topic Count: 5 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 58 Content Per Day: 0.01 Reputation: 0 Achievement Points: 384 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/03/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: August 24, 2015 Birthday: 07/15/1958 Share Posted January 5, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOILERDONXI Posted January 5, 2011 Member ID: 187 Group: **- Inactive Registered Users Followers: 22 Topic Count: 5 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 58 Content Per Day: 0.01 Reputation: 0 Achievement Points: 384 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/03/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: August 24, 2015 Birthday: 07/15/1958 Share Posted January 5, 2011 you start with the ceo's mistress, his kids and anything he dosn't hate. Then his folks who sacrificed to put his ass through school. after you kill his wife and he starts too worry about his own well being you bury him alive with a small video screen that he cant destroy do to cramped quarters as he wishes he could suicide. then you show him video of you living in his house with his money with his last worthless breath. then you take him out of the ground and put him in a nearby land fill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackbart Posted January 5, 2011 Member ID: 51 Group: Fallen Members Followers: 51 Topic Count: 342 Topics Per Day: 0.06 Content Count: 5974 Content Per Day: 1.11 Reputation: 3766 Achievement Points: 45818 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 1 Joined: 09/01/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: October 27, 2021 Birthday: 06/26/1949 Share Posted January 5, 2011 I like the blowtorch and pliers idea... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
HarryWeezer Posted January 6, 2011 Member ID: 20166 Group: ***- Inactive Clan Members Followers: 40 Topic Count: 611 Topics Per Day: 0.16 Content Count: 7652 Content Per Day: 1.98 Reputation: 7228 Achievement Points: 53663 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 36 Joined: 10/04/13 Status: Offline Last Seen: March 16 Birthday: 10/16/1946 Device: Windows Author Share Posted January 6, 2011 What they did was put a bootable drive from an identical system in as C, and the original drive in as D. When you click my computer, you see the original drive as 280GB, which is what its size was. But when you right click on the drive and select Properties, the drive shows as FAT32 with a size of 10MB. If you double click it to open it, there are two files shown there, both with wierd names, that don't do anything. So, you folks think that if we run a program to change the boot sector from FAT32, back to NTFS, that the data may then be accessible? That would save me an incredible amount of work and heartache. I'm trying to remember the command he issued at the C prompt in XP Recovery; I think it was MBRFix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
Nutcutter Posted January 6, 2011 Member ID: 1540 Group: **- Inactive Registered Users Followers: 13 Topic Count: 40 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 856 Content Per Day: 0.17 Reputation: 100 Achievement Points: 4812 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 06/28/10 Status: Offline Last Seen: May 6, 2017 Birthday: 09/20/1969 Share Posted January 6, 2011 The first thing you do is image the drive before you ever try to recover. That way you can do all you want to try to recover without ever touching the drive again. You place that image on a new drive and start to recover. BTW if you lost three weeks of your work then you should have done the backup yourself. And Two- No one ever thinks of backups till they lost someting LOL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gamin-ol>XI< Posted January 6, 2011 Member ID: 304 Group: **- Inactive Registered Users Followers: 2 Topic Count: 6 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 63 Content Per Day: 0.01 Reputation: 0 Achievement Points: 379 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/07/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: Never Birthday: 09/30/1964 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Ah Nutcutter you're such a bastard! But I think you believe in "the truth straight up please" philosophyof life! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NickTheGrip Posted January 6, 2011 Member ID: 177 Group: ***- Inactive Clan Members Followers: 16 Topic Count: 145 Topics Per Day: 0.03 Content Count: 1669 Content Per Day: 0.31 Reputation: 281 Achievement Points: 10581 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 1 Joined: 09/02/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: June 27, 2023 Birthday: 05/08/1961 Device: iPhone Share Posted January 6, 2011 The prompt input I think you are looking for is FIXMBR [device_name] from the recovery console by the way Wheezy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
Noears711XI Posted January 6, 2011 Member ID: 238 Group: ***- Inactive Clan Members Followers: 189 Topic Count: 75 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 2162 Content Per Day: 0.40 Reputation: 1940 Achievement Points: 19609 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 1 Joined: 09/04/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: October 8, 2022 Birthday: 07/09/1957 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Hey Harry I like BoilerDons Idea but the pliers and blow torch are good you might also like a car battery, some jumper cables and a bucket of water Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
Labob Posted January 6, 2011 Member ID: 42 Group: *** Clan Members Followers: 50 Topic Count: 338 Topics Per Day: 0.06 Content Count: 8269 Content Per Day: 1.54 Reputation: 5983 Achievement Points: 53645 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 12 Joined: 09/01/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: 1 hour ago Birthday: 01/30/1959 Device: Android Share Posted January 6, 2011 What nuttcracker said and I like this for revenge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_cradle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
Bama Posted January 6, 2011 Member ID: 19 Group: ***- Inactive Clan Members Followers: 101 Topic Count: 318 Topics Per Day: 0.06 Content Count: 4444 Content Per Day: 0.83 Reputation: 2763 Achievement Points: 29399 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 7 Joined: 09/01/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: March 11 Birthday: 02/29/1968 Device: iPhone Share Posted January 6, 2011 Yes Harry, all the info is still there. If you create an image like nut said, that will save it so you will have it if you fuck it up trying to recover the data. Then use find and mount (the link in my last post) or a similar program to get your files. If you don't know what you are doing, find someone there who actually does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
BHzD_WHY Posted January 6, 2011 Member ID: 1425 Group: **- Inactive Registered Users Followers: 1 Topic Count: 7 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 154 Content Per Day: 0.03 Reputation: 8 Achievement Points: 850 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 05/18/10 Status: Offline Last Seen: February 26, 2023 Birthday: 02/07/1969 Share Posted January 6, 2011 this is the best software I've used. My wife had XP, formated HD, Installed Vista, Hated it, Formatted and reinstalled XP. She forgot to backup our bussiness files but even after all that, I purchased and ran Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro. I was able to find and save all our files (luckily). Good Luck hope you work it out, Data loss blows. http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/file-recovery-software/ User Guide http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/library/erguide_en.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cavey Posted January 6, 2011 Member ID: 92 Group: **- Inactive Registered Users Followers: 42 Topic Count: 97 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 2241 Content Per Day: 0.42 Reputation: 606 Achievement Points: 13358 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 1 Joined: 09/02/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: May 11, 2020 Birthday: 06/09/1977 Share Posted January 6, 2011 Though this is slightly unhelpful to your predicament, why the hell are you using Outlook Express in a network environment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm gob smacked that your IT department haven't got an Exchange server even as old as 5.5 (though there have since been 2000, 2003 and now 2010). Then put outlook 98, 2000, 2003 or 2010 onto machines, and link them to your mailbox on the server. One port of call for backing up on a daily basis!!! Tell them to stop wasting money on endpoint assets and invest in some much needed backend architecture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobodygood>XI< Posted January 11, 2011 Member ID: 219 Group: ***- Inactive Clan Members Followers: 15 Topic Count: 24 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 492 Content Per Day: 0.09 Reputation: 108 Achievement Points: 2906 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/04/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: April 2, 2018 Birthday: 04/28/1957 Share Posted January 11, 2011 If it was my business I would have all the desktops run from the server or at the very least have the files you normally save be saved to the server. That is very easy to do and since most sane business would do a nightly backup of that system, you would never have this problem. Your IT guy HAS HIS HEAD UP HIS ASS. He is making more work for himself having all this info on the PCs rather than on the servers. That can be a big issue if you have a messy breakup with a worker. Not very safe for the company You Guys need a TS server for apps, run all the desktops from there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
Tball Posted January 11, 2011 Member ID: 112 Group: **- Inactive Registered Users Followers: 2 Topic Count: 104 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 1132 Content Per Day: 0.21 Reputation: 228 Achievement Points: 6975 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/02/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: January 3, 2015 Birthday: 10/09/1960 Share Posted January 11, 2011 whoa whoa whoa don’t blame everything on IT. Not every PCgets backed up that would cost any company a small fortune that’s where we as individualsneed to step up and say what would happen if i loose this and take steps to NOTLOOSE IT whether its tell IT you can’t live without it or take it upon yourselfto back it up. There are quite a few programs out there Harry to recovers files i use undelete http://www.active-undelete.com/undelete.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobodygood>XI< Posted January 11, 2011 Member ID: 219 Group: ***- Inactive Clan Members Followers: 15 Topic Count: 24 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 492 Content Per Day: 0.09 Reputation: 108 Achievement Points: 2906 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/04/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: April 2, 2018 Birthday: 04/28/1957 Share Posted January 11, 2011 The point is most users have no clue, if they did we would not need IT guys If you do have a IT on staff it is his/her responsibility period. Been there done that, to turn it to the users problem is bullshit period. In the end any PC,Laptop or server owned by a company I run would be the IT managers responsibility to maintain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
GorillaXI Posted January 11, 2011 Member ID: 62 Group: **- Inactive Registered Users Followers: 73 Topic Count: 480 Topics Per Day: 0.09 Content Count: 4124 Content Per Day: 0.77 Reputation: 1413 Achievement Points: 27905 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 10 Joined: 09/02/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: July 4, 2015 Birthday: 06/16/1972 Share Posted January 11, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobodygood>XI< Posted January 11, 2011 Member ID: 219 Group: ***- Inactive Clan Members Followers: 15 Topic Count: 24 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 492 Content Per Day: 0.09 Reputation: 108 Achievement Points: 2906 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/04/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: April 2, 2018 Birthday: 04/28/1957 Share Posted January 11, 2011 NOW THAT IS FUNNY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
Tball Posted January 11, 2011 Member ID: 112 Group: **- Inactive Registered Users Followers: 2 Topic Count: 104 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 1132 Content Per Day: 0.21 Reputation: 228 Achievement Points: 6975 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/02/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: January 3, 2015 Birthday: 10/09/1960 Share Posted January 11, 2011 maintain yes back up not so much what we do is we have a redirect folder users have in the folder anything that they want backed up but the user must place files in there that they want backed up. If you backed up every PC it would destroy every IT's budget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nobodygood>XI< Posted January 11, 2011 Member ID: 219 Group: ***- Inactive Clan Members Followers: 15 Topic Count: 24 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 492 Content Per Day: 0.09 Reputation: 108 Achievement Points: 2906 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 0 Joined: 09/04/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: April 2, 2018 Birthday: 04/28/1957 Share Posted January 11, 2011 Tball maintain yes back up not so much what we do is we have a redirect folder users have in the folder anything that they want backed up but the user must place files in there that they want backed up. If you backed up every PC it would destroy every IT's budget. See that is my point. You re-direct the users doc folder to save it on the server and everybody is happy. the user does not know where the frig they a saving stuff, hell half the time I have users come to me because they saved something and they don't know where. then when you do the backup of the server, bingo the users files are backed up without you taking any extra effort. I don't see how that would make a dent into any budget. You are not backing up every computer, just the server. And when they ball up their computer you don't have to worry about them loosing their data Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options... Awards
GorillaXI Posted January 12, 2011 Member ID: 62 Group: **- Inactive Registered Users Followers: 73 Topic Count: 480 Topics Per Day: 0.09 Content Count: 4124 Content Per Day: 0.77 Reputation: 1413 Achievement Points: 27905 Solved Content: 0 Days Won: 10 Joined: 09/02/09 Status: Offline Last Seen: July 4, 2015 Birthday: 06/16/1972 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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