well my computer was messing up so i called hp and tthey had me do a system restore.. i did it but i lost all my music/pictures. the guy i talked to said that if i renamed my folders the music would still be there but its gone.. is there anyway to get it back or am i screwed??? were talking over 8500 songs here. im so ____ed

 

Go into where you set your system restore point and there should be something to either remove the restore point or back track to where it was before the restore point was set.

 

START ---> SEARCH---> Do a system search of *.mp3 or *.wav

If it finds a lot of .mp3 files, it'll tell you what folder they are stored in and then you can co a quick find of the folder and find your songs.

 

That is all you can do at this point. My advice is NEVER to store files on the C:\ partition. If you only have one hard drive (like my laptop) then partition off about 10mb for the os and programs. Partition the rest as a D: drive and store all of your files there. Then, you can totally format the c: drive and install your os without hurting your stored files. I also reccomend getting an external drive for all of your important stuff.

 

^^Bump for the external.

Store your games, pics, vids, songs..etc...on the external with only the OS on the main Harddrive. Computer will run much faster due to almost no cludder.

 

10mb, you running DOS? :D

 

System restore is a piece of s***, I would never use it if i were u. Believe me, I speak from experience as a computer engineer and fixing hundreds of computers

You have 2 options
1) Run system restore again and undo the system restore (there's gonna be 50% chance this gonna ____ things up even more), then fix your problem by another method. Post your problem here and I might be able to help

2) Download one of the file recovery program (google file recovery) and run it and recover ur mp3. Some will let you filter out which type of file you want to search for.

 

well thanks for the help but i still cant find it. and i didnt know anything about doing a system restore so I went back to the previous save point and it wasnt there.. so i guess I will have to start my music collection over

 

Try doing the file searches and the google file recovery. No point in just giving up before trying all the options. I'm sure you'll find them if they are on there.

 

I remember I used to boot my old 286, no hard drive, with a 1.2MB floppy disk, the whole DOS took up like maybe 200KB

 

It's definitely there, install oen of those file recovery programs and it will find it for you

What rank are you armyguy ?? What's ur MOS ?

 

hahaha, I had a Commador 64. I played Ace of Aces, California Games and Winter Games all the time. Have to type "Load......"............hahahaha

 

Meant to type GB. Sorry for the typo

 

I also agree that system restore is junk. I have never used it. Backups are the only way to go. Even the larger solutions like Altiris snapshots are junk when it really comes down to it. If you are backed up, reload the OS and dump your files back in place.

 

it says he is from ft lewis

 

...3 words.
Acronis True Image
You should be able to recover your mp3's with an aftermarket restore software. Once this is done, back them up to an external drive. Drop in the original OS (Windows XP) CD. Reboot the machine. Press any key to boot to the CD. When prompted with the partitions, go through the appropriate motions (D, Enter, L, Enter) to remove all partitions. Once complete. Set up a small partition (5-10 Gigs depending on total drive space) for the OS and programs. You will be installing Windows here. Once you have this partition created, you can create a partition encompassing the rest of the drive. Format the partitions and proceed to load Windows on the smaller partition. Once Windows is loaded, load all your programs. Load all your important files from the external drive to the D: drive (larger partition). Run Acronis True Image. Use it to create a bootable CD/DVD with a fresh image of your newly installed OS and programs. Voila! You are up and running on a new install.
Next time your machine bites the dust, simply boot the Acronis CD/DVD and restore the Acronis image. It will restore EVERYTHING, including your missing files, installed programs, etc..