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[jd ddd40]

I need some help/advise. My home computer is messed up keeps saying windows is missing a file. I don't have the disk to repair, so I have to do a reboot which will wipe out over 3000 pictures off my hard drive. Is there anyway to save that or store it some how to retrieve later. I don't know anything about computers, but I don't want to lose all my itunes and all the pictures of me being naughty

[paybarraman]

Ill try but the geek squad guy said he had to reformat the drive so he said everything was wiped.  I don't know shine all about computers so I'm lost.  Hubby is good with cars bikes and big stuff, with computers, fax machines, and cell phones he is lost,lol.  Our son had to set up out wireless router.  And yes there was video, really good video, but its all gone now.

That's a shame. It sucks sometimes that there isnt anyone close by enough to look into stuff like this. That's my thing with "Geek Squad" etc. Those guys are taught only so much, and if they cant fix it quick they go right to the wipe the hard drive and rebuild option, cause they get the most money out of the least amount of work time. Unless it was a "catastrophic" drive failure: drive head crash; physical disk failure. But if he was able to reformat it, that tells you the drive itself didnt fail physically.

What should have been done is: connect to another computer and browse the drive either within comp B's operating system or using a 3rd Party app (like the one mentioned by C-Man) to try to save as much User Data as possible.

Just cause the drive wouldn not boot up into the operating system DOES NOT mean that you couldn't salvage the files there or even browse through the directories.

Sorry JD. I know I couldn't actually look at the drive and see the problems, but just from what you were describing, in my opinion and experience, at least some of those files could have been saved.

I know the files were sensitive, but did the Geeks even give you the option of them trying to salvage data files from the drive before going for the hammer and just wiping it?