Problem with .wpds

[T-Tatsu]

I guess I’ll go with the whole story. About a month ago my computer conked out, due to it’s power source. When that happened, it wiped the drive. After trying some things, my tech support said that getting the data back was a dead issue. There was no way he could do it. So he zero filled it and gave it back to me. I accepted at that time there was nothing I could do. After getting another computer, since that was it’s main drive and I didn’t fully trust it, because we had no idea what killed that last computer, I ended up putting an small amount of data on it as a secondary drive. Then I decided perhaps I should give it another go on getting the data back. At least data I needed/wanted back, badly. I tried Recuva and it said It found the data, said data being .wpds. But the recovered .wpds, that don’t open with their right program and only be view with notepad, give gibberish or Chinese characters. I tried another program () that only gave me a small amount of the files I wanted to retrieve. But it gave me viewable data from files that Recuva gives as gibberish. Also the recovered files that Recuva gave me are right in size, just not content, due to comparing with files that I could retrieve.

I’m wondering is there something I can do to get the data back, because this is only program that’s showing all the files I want back (and trust me, I tried a lot of programs). Recuva also says that the files are excellent and no overwritten clusters detected. Or perhaps screwed my self over by having it zero filled and new data being put it. I’m sorry, if this not acceptable. I’m just at my wits end now.

Edited April 20, 2013 by Nergal
PROGRAM NAME REDACTED

[Nergal]

Hi I've removed the brand of the other product you mentioned¹

A couple of things

if indeed he actually zero'd it out you probably are out of luck...however, from your description of the files (Chinese and symbols) it doesn't sound as if he actually did that (those are how non-plain-text coding shows in a text reader like notepad)

if you could tell us a few facts

what Windows are you running (as well as the version on the old computer)?

did you run recuva in deep scan or regular scan?

what color (red yellow green) did the icon in recuva show? you answered this

What program usually opens these files?

 

¹unknown to you there's a bit of a ban on mentioning competition, unless/on-rare-occasion by moderator when needed. No worries on you end.

Edited April 20, 2013 by Nergal

[Alan_B]

I doubt your Tech support competence (or veracity) if Recuva can detect file names after they "zero filled" the drive.

 

If Tech Support could not spare the time to phone you before wiping the drive it is unlikely that they would waste hours wiping it,

a quick format would have been enough to prepare the drive for giving it back to you.

 

I ended up putting an small amount of data on it as a secondary drive

 

If you added 'x' GB of data to this drive you will have only over-written 'x' GB at the start of the Drive.

The rest of the drive will still have your original data with whatever damage happened as a result of the power problem and Tech Support abuse.

 

Even better news is the fact that IF this was previously your System Drive,

then you overwrote your Windows System files which were at the start of the drive,

so your "small amount of data" will not have overwritten your user documents such as *.wpds.

 

SUGGESTION :-

Try to Recuva files which ARE compatible with simple programs such as Notepad.

If you Recuva a *.TXT file it has no special header or format,

and even a broken fragment can be read by Notepad,

and if that fragment is intelligible you have proof that most of the data has survived all the disasters of the Power failure and Tech Support abuse,

in which case it is worth looking for software that can either :-

read a broken / damaged *.wpds file; or

repair/create an appropriate header etc. to give make it usable.

 

N.B. I got "About 255,999,251 results (0.49 seconds) when I searched for "*.wpds file"

Mostly they were WPS converters etc but you might find something suitable.

 

Otherwise there are alternatives which may work for you,

but for recommendations you need to find a general forum that is not tied to a specific product.

[T-Tatsu]

Oh, sorry about that. Oh, ok. It’s just normally when those types of files are opened with notepad, you see the gibberish of the coding, but you can make out the words. In this case, is just all gibberish or Chineses, which is new to those files.

As for what windows I was running it was Windows 7 and the new machine is also Windows 7. The files are normally opened with WordPerfect. I’m currently running X6, so was the old computer. Recuva could only find them on deep scan.

I’ll state here, that my tech support is in no way professional, just a friend of mine who is good at computers. I also, I noticed that some text files, that I recovered were doing that same thing. They too, were uncovered by deep scan. As for viewing them at damaged .wpds, I’ve done that. I couldn’t find a program that could fix them and I tried several.