The scenario: My primary hard drive (HD1) became infected beyond the capabilities of adware & spyware tools, AV, or firewall. I then transferred my important data files to (what I thought was) a storage hard drive, (HD2). Thinking that I had designated a second hard drive (HD2) as the storage drive, I reinstalled WIN XP Home SP1 from CD, and then installed SP 2 from CD onto HD1. Then I went looking for my saved data files. I could not find HD2 using Windows Explorer. So, I opened the case, only to find that HD2 was not connected to the system or power. Thinking back, I remembered that I had partitioned HD1 and used the large partition for storage, not HD2. Ok, now you have the story. Stupid mistake.

Having sufficiently, verbally abused myself for such an arcane move, I moved on with data recovery. I installed WIN XP Home SP1 from CD, and then installed SP 2 from CD onto HD2. I am now using HD2 as primary, and have disconnected HD1 from the system and power. I need to know how to proceed to recover as much of my data as possible, much of which is several folders of JPEGs. I have a copy of Encase 2004, which I understand is very strong, but I am intimidated by the warnings in the 300 page, online manual.

Two potential avenues of solution for you, from the expert team that we here call the Friends of Ask Dave Taylor…

Tags: disk recovery, data recovery, windows disk recovery