Replies to post #64 on Dream Machine

[Bruce A Thompson]

Scott

We all have those days occasionally. Formatting a drive should be a lastand final attempy before throwing it away. Formatting can be very dangerous and data is always lost. I don't think that the HP has anything to do with it. HP's recovery software is exactly that. Software. I build my own computers so I choose OS and other programs that run on them and don't have recovery problems.

Most of the time, when the kiddies screw up a computer, the solution is cleaning out the registry and junk files. Ace utilities is the best overall for that.

In your case, I would remove the HD from the system and see if http://www.recallusa.com/data_recovery_estimate.html can get your data back.

Why is it that all of us have to learn the hard way? (g)

BT

[augieboo]

dieselfuel, that article I referred to earlier discussed the military's criteria for considering a drive wiped. It said that for NON-classified info, a drive has to be reformatted at least seven times before it can be considered wiped and, apparently, some info can still be recovered even after seven wipes. (For classified info, they basically incinerate the drive.)

Therefore, I'm thinking that despite your multiple reformatting attempts, at least some of your data is still there. So I second Bruce's suggestion that you at least ask the pros how much they think they can recover before giving up on it.

(:

augie