Computer Crash

[Alscott]

I just went through a very painful experience. About 2 hours ago while surfing the internet my computer froze all of a sudden. I had no other choice but to pull out cables and plug them back in because none of the buttons were responding. When I turned it back on, about 70% of my files were gone. I tried restarting and turning my computer on and off and it didn't work. I searched all over the computer for files but they can't be found.

It pretty much devastated me, I lost probably over $400 in software and files. I would hire somebody to try and restore it, but I don't have the money for it as it would probably cost over $100. I will however get a flashstick memory card and backup pretty much everything important, it's a lesson I had to learn the hard way. Now i'm going through the damage trying to recover anything that I can.

Has this ever happened to anybody? Or does anybody have an idea on how I can get the stuff back?

[Aziz]

I would feel the same if that happened to me D: btw why haven't you got a flash-drive already? you didn't have to wait for such tragedy to buy one

[Alscott]

I do own one, but I used it for only school related purposes. I didn't own a printer so I had to print everything at the school. I did however copy one folder, and I'm very glad I did because it did cost me a lot.

[Twistereli]

There are some file recovery tools, but they mostly recover the stuff you don't need like system settings and blahblah.

For the software, I would download it like pirates do, but if you actually paid for it, it won't be a harm i guess.

For homemade files, well I hope they're somewhere, but I'd definately post this issue on a Tech forum or 2, they'll know what to do for sure.

[bond]

Yes, ditto on what Eli said. I had a similar experience with a friend's external hard-drive! She almost killed me because it had all her life pictures in it. Luckily, I was able to retrieve most of it using software. I used a combination of 2-3 different tools as I found one recovered some and another recovered some.

For photos, I used PhotoRescue. I think there's also PCDoctor.

The software I used were mostly trials. Do a search on Google for "data recovery software" and try them out.

All my business files are stored on DropBox.com. I haven't lost anything yet. And as of now, I'm still on the free plan as I haven't gone over 2GB's yet. All my pictures are uploaded to Flickr.com and I use that as my backup. The yearly plan is like $25 which is like $2/month. So basically, I have no important files on my computer that I can't recreate. I really suggest everyone use this setup.

Sorry to hear about your computer. For the software, if you paid for it, can you get it back again because you have the license?

[Twistereli]

you can get up to 8gb on dropbox for free.

[tak]

Are you using Windows?

Originally Posted by Twistereli

you can get up to 8gb on dropbox for free.

4Shared.com is 10GB for free.

[bond]

How do I get up to 8gb on Dropbox for free?

@Tak, what is 4Shared.com? Is it new? How does it compare to Dropbox?

[Alscott]

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, I will give them a try.

[tak]

Originally Posted by bond

How do I get up to 8gb on Dropbox for free?

@Tak, what is 4Shared.com? Is it new? How does it compare to Dropbox?

I never used dropbox but 4shared is old and a lot of people use it.