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[jonnycool]

My desktop computer did something strange the other day, and after this happened, it was as if it had reverted back to how it was straight out of the box - as a result, all the photos I had stored in 'My Pictures' have now disappeared - there were thousands from the past 6 or 7 years of holidays, the kids, events, etc etc. I'm just in a daze at the moment, I just can't believe I've lost them all. I know I should have backed them up, and I did this with a lot of the early ones of the kids but not with the rest.

Does anyone know if there's anything I can do, or have I lost them forever? 

[Darth Loo-knee]

Captain Zok mentioned something to me when I deleted some pictures from my camera to enable me too get them back. Not sure if it works for computers but try PM ing him he can tell you better.
Good Luck.

[TheBoy]

If it was a standard type factory restore, you're only way is going to be restore from your backup. You did take backups, didn't you

[Gaffers]

If no backups were made you could try an Un-deletion tool.  Plenty available for free on download.com 

[Steve B]

thought you get choice ...full or partial backup

[CaptainZok]

Recuva may be able to find them if they've not been overwritten.

[jonnycool]

Recuva may be able to find them if they've not been overwritten.

How do I do that? Download from internet?

[jonnycool]

If it was a standard type factory restore, you're only way is going to be restore from your backup. You did take backups, didn't you

No, I just made a recovery disc 

[CaptainZok]

Recuva may be able to find them if they've not been overwritten.

How do I do that? Download from internet?

Google recuva install it and see what it finds.

[tunnie]

Yes, hopefully a tool will recover it. Even though they are not shown, they are still there taking up space. Just been marked as space, hence its not showing.

That said, with a restore, I'm not sure if it actually does a full wipe and write the whole disc. 

I too have pictures from the last decade, it was a worry for me if my flat got broken into/fire ect, so have all my pictures on one drive. Its then backed up to another, just in case that drive fails. I also keep another drive at my parents house and take new ones there each time, so if I get broken into here, got a full off site backup 

Maybe perhaps not what you want to hear now, but for the future 

[jonnycool]

Thanks Tunnie, but it looks like they've gone, Recuva found nothing at all 

So that's a harsh lesson learned, I'll never let that happen again. Thanks anyway for the advice chaps 

[Martian]

Stop using the affected hard drive IMMEDIATELY.
Take it out, place it in a second PC as a slave and use Easy Recovery Pro in RAW mode.

[jonnycool]

Stop using the affected hard drive IMMEDIATELY.
Take it out, place it in a second PC as a slave and use Easy Recovery Pro in RAW mode.

Now that may make sense to some of the people on here, but not me I'm afraid. I haven't got another PC for a start, and wouldn't know how to take the drive out and use it as a slave, let alone the rest 

I appreciate that you're trying to help, and thanks very much for that, but it's wasted on me, I just don't know enough about computers to do this 

[2woody]

I've used a second desktop to recover data before. Just take the hard-drive out of the forgetful one and install it as a second drive in the other computer. That way, none of the operating system is used and you're free to poke around the damaged hard-drive to your heart's content

[PhilRich]

Have you tried restoring the computer to the last 'Restore' point before the problem occured Jon? As already said, do not use the drive until you're absolutely certain you've lost the stuff irretrievably as every time the machine is used it overwrites supposedly 'empty' sectors of the disk! I wish you the Best of Luck matey