Recovering files after reinstalling windows 7. Urgent help needed!!!

[curiousmind]

hello everyone
i have a windows 7 ultimate 64 bit on Lenovo B560 laptop.
yesterday i downloaded bluetooth driver from the lenovo site, when the already installed driver was not working and also not getting updated.
when i was installing the driver, after some time it seemed as if the system has hanged. so i ended the process through start task manager, thinking to reinstall it. as soon i ended it, i saw many of the files on my system were missing.
i tried using system restore, but of no help. from that time on i got the message:

Boot Manager:
Windows failed to start. A recent hardware of software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:

1.Insert your Windows installation disc and restart the computer.
2.Choose your language settings, and then click "Next".
3.Click "Repair your computer."

If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance.

Status: 0xc000000f

Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible.

i tried everything possible to repair, but ultimately i had to reinstall windows.
now my major problem is all the data and softwares on my system are gone and i have no idea how to recover it. i do not have any system image or as such any backups. i handled any blunders in the past through system restore but that is not working.

i am a novice at using computers and do not have much technical knowledge.
pls someone help me!! i have my project to submit.

thanx in advance.

 

[josearedux]

Did you have multiple partitions on your hard drive when you reinstalling win 7?
If you go into disk management you can easly determine this.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible

Reason:

• Something messed with bootmenu
• start sector of win7 partition changed
• disk signature of physical disk where win7 is on did change

In bootmenu is a bootentry called something like "windows 7". It has info like "start win7 from disk with signature 1289afbe, from partition that starts at sector 127862".

So one of those things did change. Maybe whole partition was gone (corrupt)? Did you try startup repair then?
Were all partitions still on disk when you did a reinstall?

 

[curiousmind]

hello Josea and Kaktussoft
firstly, thanx for replying

before reinstalling windows, my hd had c: and d: partitions; c: had windows installed and most of the data, s/w. d: had some data.
before reinstalling windows i tried system recovery from installation disk. there i also looked in the option of loading drivers. then i noticed in 'open driver' window that my c: drive became d: and d: to e:
i could make this out by looking at the space occupied by drives.
at the time of reinstalling it was mentioned that the old data will be copied in windows.old folder.
after reinstalling also i have c: and d: drives. data on d is there. but windows.old contain mostly empty folders or system folders. all my documents, data and personal data all are gone.

 

[curiousmind]

when i got Status: 0xc000000f error i tried every option that showed up for recovery, but it got me back to the message:

Boot Manager:
Windows failed to start. A recent hardware of software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:

1.Insert your Windows installation disc and restart the computer.
2.Choose your language settings, and then click "Next".
3.Click "Repair your computer."

If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance.

Status: 0xc000000f

Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible.

 

[Kaktussoft]

Do you have folder c:\windows.old\users ? Is your (old) username there? There is the old documents/music/pictures folder. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/394-hidden-files-folders-show-hide.html
Be sure to show "hidden files" and "system protected files". You can revert the settings later

 

[Phone Man]

Try Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download It is a free program and works great. It depends on the condition of the missing files but is worth a try.

Jim

 

[curiousmind]

yes i do have c:\windows.old\my username folder. it contains many of the older folders(not all) but furthermore most of these folders are empty.

 

[curiousmind]

hey Jim, thanx for the suggestion

 

[Phone Man]

One tip. If you are recovering files from the C: partition, recover them to your D: partition so you don't overwrite anything on C:

Before you start read the guides at: Piriform - Recuva

Good Luck,
Jim

 

[curiousmind]

tried scanning through recuva for c drive. found more than 51000 files. i am totally confused as to what to do

 

[curiousmind]

trying recuva......will report back

 

[Phone Man]

It can be confusing so that is why I posted the link to the guides. I have only used it a couple of times on an external disk and it took a little reading to get it right.

Jim

 

[curiousmind]

oooops!! sorry reading the guides at: Piriform - Recuva. will get back

Jim, sorry, actually my mind is so exhausted by now that i did not look at your post about the guide. also by now i have lost all patience........so i am not able to function normally.
but really thanx for the help. it looks to be working, dont know to what extent.
loads of thanx to you

 

[curiousmind]

hello guys
i have been trying to use recuva since yesterday. its working but still there are many important files that are not being recovered. the reason stated is some encryption issue.
also its taking a lot of time, which i cant afford right now.
i have been able to locate a system restore point that i created before the installation of the bluetooth driver, in the windows.old folder. but have no idea whether it would be of any help. if yes, then how can i use it to recover my data?
the problem is i have even lost the installers of the softwares and also all chrome bookmarks.
any help is appreciated.
thanx