XP user account

[dhodnett1]

Somehow inadvertently deleted the primary user account while setting up a new account. All files & folders are gone, system restore refuses to do work, (need to find the "F" key that will allow me to use Sys Recovery at boot) and trying to find the best way to restore the user account and/or recover all the files that were lost.

 

Found this software through a search & hoping it will do the job.

 

No data has been written over this space on the drive.

 

Please help?

 

Thanks very much,

 

Donna H

[alloverx]

If Windows System Restore doesnt do the job and you have no other complete backup, then you can go down the file recovery path

 

Read the Recuva online documentation first. Here are some quick tips

 

1) Ideally you need to connect the hard drive that has the files on it to a different (Other) computer. You might have to know the partition also, if there are multiple partitions on the hard drive

2) download/install recuva onto the other computer (C drive probably).

3) Then run recuva and select your original hard drive which might be E or F drive.

4) Select the files to restore

- Make sure you restore the files to the other computer, not your original hard drive

5) burn a CD/DVD or copy to a USB/thumb drive, the desired files from other computer

6) once you are sure you have all the files extracted, re-install original hard drive in original computer

7) copy over files to the original computer (once you have re-created admin userid)

- this assumes you can re-add the admin account