System crash - Image Restore - Lost initial Files - How to get back?

[drtabby4]

Ok, on oct 26th I must have had a bad virus and my computer got turned off before I could get it off using my virus program or spyware program. I tried everything, but it just kept rebooting after making it to the login screen. I could not get it to start up in safe mode, I could not find my system disk. I have several external hds and I was able to do a system image restore from july. However, every file, favorite places, picts, videos ect. ( and it was alot) from July to Oct 26th is gone I guess?

Which leads me to my question is their anyway to get them back?

Another strange thing it that when I try a restore there is a 10/26 backup but it fails.

Is there a way to undo last image restore? I have made a system disk and have a new win 7 boot disk. If I could just get it to undo last image restore then I might could use these disks to get back to that day.

I would think that Win7 would automatically make some kind of back up when I uploaded the image, but where would it store it and what would it be called?

I know with vista I use to restore backups from 1 day earlier and there was a calendar that would allow me to pick the date. I would backup everytime I rebooted. I know I rebooted on many ocasions between July and Oct 26th. I even backed uped some files on Oct 10th.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank You

Tab

 

[Darkelk]

Did you restore an image of the exact Data you had on your previous Operating system?
(Did it have your media and favourite places etc which you are trying to get back?)

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I was able to do a system image restore from july. However, every file, favorite places, picts, videos ect. ( and it was alot) from July to Oct 26th is gone I guess?

Which leads me to my question is their anyway to get them back?

Is there a way to undo last image restore?

I would think that Win7 would automatically make some kind of back up when I uploaded the image, but where would it store it and what would it be called?

I'd guess the files from July to Oct 26 are gone. I don't know of any way to undo an image restore.

The image restore did exactly what it's supposed to do. It took your C partition back to the state it was in at the time you made the image.

You apparently did not back up your data files other than through the image. That's generally not a good idea.

That's why it's generally a good idea to keep your personal data files on a D partition. You could then have restored your July image of C and still had your data files available on D.

 

[Mark Phelps]

It MIGHT be possible to get some data back -- but that depends entirely on HOW the image was made and how it was restored to the drive. Let me explain.

If the image was done by cloning disk sectors, and was restored the same way, that is, for lack of a better term, a physical copy of the drive done some time ago. Anything added to the drive since then will be gone because it was basically restored to exactly the way it was when the backup was done.

If the image was done by copying directories and files, that is, for lack of a better term, a logical copy of the drive. Then, if the restore is performed by blanking the partition table and rewriting the directories and folders, from the "start" of the partition, presuming that the data is written contiguously, if the partition was not full, that implies that data at the "end " of the partition did not get overwritten.

If the second is the case, then data recovery programs would be able to find traces of the earlier files and might be able to recover some of them.

That said, I'll admit I'm speculating because I don't know how the backups and recoveries are actually performed.

 

[kado897]

Yoiu mentioned that you had a backup from 26/10 which failed. If this is an image backup you may be able to recover user files from it using this tutorial.http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/24771-system-image-extract-files-using-disk-management.html?filter[2]=Backup%20Restore