OTbut need help badly:

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by RIFLEMAN, Mar 21, 2004.

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  1. RIFLEMAN

    RIFLEMAN Registered Member

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    Hello I was hoping someone can help me figure out what to do. Awhile back--after getting a trojan I screwed the registry up badly and I had to reinstall my XP in order to reboot my machine. This worked fine but I lost many gigs of music and applications. The problem is that they are still there--taking up space so that my hard drive is now full.
    I did find and run a great file recovery program that helped me get most of my music back--and even shows the huge number of useless files on my hard drive. Does anyone know a way to remove these files? There is at least 10 gigs that the recovery program shos but cannot delete them--only restore. I don't want to restore thm in the case I may screw the new setup I am running now. I cannot figure why the drive registers the files taking up space, but they cannot be seen or searched. I hope you guys can help me out as you have been great with security issues. Thanks for your time.
     
  2. shunned

    shunned Guest

    Trying to understand what can of re-install you did.......did you use a boot disc and XP CD..it does not seem that way?? Or did you use a Re-Store cd? At this point not sure it matters unless you intend doing a new format.

    So, did you try clearing your system restore. Those recoverable files are coming from somewhere..where? Its a wild card but you can try setting your system restore to its lowest setting....then do a disc clean-up......system restore can be re-set again later
     
  3. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    It might be worth turning sys restore off rebooting then do your disc clean. By rebooting with restore turned off you will loose all of your restore points but it might be worth it if it works.
     
  4. Shunned

    Shunned Guest

    RM

    The way BigC stated IS THE CORRECT WAY...I forgot to mention the re-booting part....the purpose IS to lost everything in restore....



    BigC..thanks for pointing that out
     
  5. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    If you just can not get rid of the lost files you can do a reinstall of the os if you have an os install disc and choose repartition and format and that will get rid of the files for good. But it has to be an os install disc not restore disc's. It is never fun to do a reinstall even with a lot of backups. But sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. Maybe someone else will read this post and have another idea. I have restored an os with restore disc's before and found dead files still on the HDD and the repartition and format is what I had to do to permanantly get rid of them. I know HP restore has the option restore or reformat and the reformat will get rid of all of the old files where restore won't. Restore will leave your personal settings and will remove the paths and short cuts to some apps but they will still be on the disc just non accesable.
     
  6. Mullyman

    Mullyman Registered Member

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    Give this a try...it will clean your hard drive :cool:

    http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
     
  7. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    I may be wrong but that program seems to just overwrite files and info not actually delete it off of the disc it just makes the overwritten files unrecoverable. The problem here is that he needs to actually delete the used space to recover disc space not just make it unrecoverable.
     

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  8. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    I may be wrong on my assumption of just overwriting files I did a little more research and found that some of these programs actually write the disc to to a different value. Rifleman this may just work for you. if not you can still try the other solution. see screen shot for over write info.
     

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  9. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    Mullyman you may have found the solution to a troublesome problem.
     
  10. RIFLEMAN

    RIFLEMAN Registered Member

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    Hi guys and thanks for the quick replies. I could only reboot from the disk which was the OS not a backup--and asked it to reinstall. Now the progam i used to restore my music files worked great--even put them back in my Windows Mediaplayer library. I need a program that will also delete the files instead of only restoring them. I did run some cleaner programs but they ignore this stuff. It is old games, DLLs, config settings, etc. About 12 gigs worth. I could strt over but it will be very tiresome as Tthe music would ned to be saved to CD,s and reloading other software. I jus find it strange the nothing else sees these files except for the fact they take up room. Any more ideas? Thanks.
    PS--Just noticed a few new posts i haven't read yet so if a solution is already there thank you. Eraser did not work on them either.
     
  11. Shunned

    Shunned Guest

    BigC

    Nope...eraser not the answer at this point.....great product by the way.
    Would take forever to wipe one file at a time........eraser can wipe all Un-used disc space on C drive also....in this case the disc space is USED...an will be ignorred..not wiped. Also, as info...the product can overwrite the entire un-used space of C drive...when its done...the OS's disc cleaner pops=up advising that you have run out of disc space.....an would you like to delete un-necessary files......of course yes....an C drive is cleaned...back to normal
     
  12. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    if it is just an os install disc don;t ask it to restore ask it to install the os and that will repartition and format the disc before installing the os. That is about the only to get those unrecoverable files out of there
     
  13. RIFLEMAN

    RIFLEMAN Registered Member

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    I ill give it a shot. Thanks again.
     
  14. Shunned

    Shunned Guest

    RM

    when an operating system is in the state your's is in its question just how secure is it...what else is messed up....the question lingers...........

    BigC present what I personally believe is the best and right answer....do the install over and do the install correctly. Burn what programs you can to CD..an just do it over correctly. Frankly I don't want to use a questionable operating system..do you? Even if you do get those files off...what else is messed up that you may not know about
    Last post on subject:
     
  15. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    I really do wish there was a simple remedy but sometimes it ends up taking more action than we prefer to get into. But if your install disc has the option to reformat or repartition it will get rid of those old files. Good luck and sorry I couldn't have been more help. Or you can just bring it by the house and we will fix you up.( Yeah right ) :D :D ;)
     
  16. HandsOff

    HandsOff Registered Member

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    I guess i don't quite understand the questioin, and I am a little curious about the file recover program you mentioned. You seem to know what the files are, and then say you can't "see" them except to recover them. Does this mean that the files have been archived as for instance a program like Dantz Retrospect does when it creates system backups? If that's what you mean then I understand because the back-up set is just visible as one file, e.g. "back-up set A.rfb", and you can only see the individual files as you restore them. If that is the case they may be encryped and archived.

    What program did you use to recover the files? Was it monitoring installations prior to your system restore? If so, it may be reserving a large amount of hard drive space for recovery purposes and you will need change that to free the space back up.

    What about chkdsk? does it say the file structure is good?

    Good luck finding an answer. Hopefully something will click.



    - HandsOff
     
  17. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    After he restored the os these files were still on the HDD but not accessable and for the most part unrecoverable. I had this happen on a customers computer a while ago and it was rather frustrating having to do a os reinstall right after I had already done it once that day. But I couldn't find another way to get rid of the files. :mad:
     
  18. HandsOff

    HandsOff Registered Member

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    That does sound frustrating. Of course, that might not be a bug, it could be a feature. No doubt the "repair" feature of XP would be a lot more potent if they did not worry about what another user might do will repairing the o/s to files that he was not supposed to have access to. I guess that's why they make the big bucks

    - HandsOff
     
  19. Jooske

    Jooske Registered Member

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    If you're really sure you don't need the files, did you try the clean space function in the CryptoSuite program? Maybe it can get there, maybe not. If you don't own it yet try a (free) evaluation at www.diamondcs.com -- it's just another shot in trying to free up your space in a safe way.
     
  20. RIFLEMAN

    RIFLEMAN Registered Member

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    Hi all. I guess I will try Jooske's suggestion as a last resort today and then start burning CDs. Hands OFF--the program I used to find and see these files was called "Handy Recovery 1.0" from "Soft Logica" I had to go through each "$$folder" and manually check to see what files were WMA--and most had the song names still on them. The "Handy" program restored the songs to the point of putting them back in my Windows Media library. I found this amazing as I had to reinstall that also during the OS. Thanks for the help and will let you know what happens in a day or so after burning.
     
  21. Jooske

    Jooske Registered Member

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    Woindering if you try with a few renaming them to somethign valid, if that would make the files readable again too? So maybe they are not really all lost at all?
    Before you start wiping anything at all which you could regret.
     
  22. HandsOff

    HandsOff Registered Member

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    Rifleman, this is a comment that won't help you in your current situation, however it may give you something to think about as you sip your coffee. If it comes down to reformatting consider creating a new separate partition for your music files. Aside from the obvious advantage of being able to reformat and reinstall the system drive it offers many timesaving advantages. for instance the C:\ drive requires much more maintanence in the form of defragmenting, virus checking, spyware scanning, and so on.

    That Handyrecovery program...do you think it would could find anything on a HDD that was reformatted. I have an ancient HDD and just think it would be fun to see if i could recover anything from it. I have never researched it, but have always thought it would be cool to have a program that could do that.

    - HandsOff
     
  23. RIFLEMAN

    RIFLEMAN Registered Member

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    Hi Hands Off---I should read up on partitioning the drive for sure. I am just getting ready to do the reinstall after done burning music. By the way---I am sure this program will find any files left to find on the hard drive. It was free for 30 dys--I think. Just do a search for the name and company to find it again. Thanks for the help everyone.
     
  24. bigc73542

    bigc73542 Retired Moderator

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    If you are planning to get a partition app I have been useing partition magic for a long time and it is easy to understand and use. There are other apps that partition but I like this one for ease of use. And good luck on your task. :D ;)
     
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