Hi guys, I havent been here in a while and I guess thats a good thing. The only time I come around is when I have a problem. Well, I have a problem. Im going to give a long history so maybe the picture is crystal clear.
I have an old desk top that is about 12 years old that I havent used much since XP support went out. Ive been meaning to put a new operating system in it but havent until last week and thats where the problem comes in.
Years back I had a premonition that the hard drive was going to go out. I copied all my files to external discs and in two days it did crash. I got a new WD 500 GB hard drive and got it going again. I decided to go back and get a second WD 500 GB hard drive and put it in to back things up on. I have been doing this for several years.
A couple of weeks ago I kept getting the message on my monitor that there was no input signal. I fooled around and tried a couple of tricks I found on the internet and it didnt work. I then took it to my computer guy. He replaced 7 capacitors on the mother board and got it going again. It was lightening fast too. It hasnt been that good since it was new.
My computer guy told me if I got a new operating system it would last me several more years. We discussed, Windows 7, 8.0, 8.1 and 10. My computer was capable of running them all he told me, but the later versions might be hard to find drivers that would work with the old machine. We settled on Windows 7 Ultimate. He could install it for me cheaper that any OS I could find online.
I told him to let me move all my files and I would bring it back and let him install Windows 7 Ultimate. I moved all my files to the then G: hard drive and took it to him for a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate.
I picked it up a couple of days later and got home and hooked it back up and proceeded to put some of my programs back. I then looked for my backup hard drive which was labeled D: now. I clicked on it and no files that had been backed up. Just a bunch of garbage I dont know where it came from or how it got there.
I called my computer guy up and quizzed him and he said all he did was install the OS on the C: drive. He didnt do anything with my then G: drive. If I had thought about it I would have taken the dang G: drive out, but I thought it wouldnt come into play, but it apparently it did somehow.
What I need to know is can I retrieve my old files? My computer guy said they could be hidden, but all I can determine is that they are gone. I did a little Googling and found where it may be possible to recover some or all of my files. I found free downloads, which I dont trust. Is there a legitimate program one can buy to perform this? Id be willing to give it a try. Dont really care about anyones services, just a disc with a program I can load and try the recovery process. I had about 22 years of all kind of file on my backup hard drive. Some files were important ones and some were not so important ones.
Any suggestions?
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
