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My computer was recently “fixed” by a friend who said he could not recover my Word documents or any files on the hard drive. He said it was a “partition” problem. Can files be retrieved from a corrupted or crashed hard drive? I’m a church pastor and lost all my sermons. Any help you can offer is appreciated!

The short answer to your question is that yes, in many cases you will be able to recover Word documents and files from a corrupted or crash hard drive. You’ll just need some special software. Read on to discover what you need to do to retrieve your sermons.

Data Recovery Software

Data recovery software is designed to recover lost or missing data from computer hard drives. In particular, this type of software can retrieve documents and files of many types provided they have not been overwritten with new data. This includes Word documents, emails, images, music, folders, applications, and more.

Overwritten Documents

Each time you write new documents, they take up space on the storage media. If you have deleted any documents, it is possible that they will be written over with the new data. If the document that you want to retrieve has been written over with new data, then it will no longer exist and you won’t be able to retrieve it.

How Does Data Recovery Software Work?

Once you download and install data recovery software, you can use it to scan your computer to recover Word documents, files, images, videos, and other data. In many instances, you are able to select the type of data that you wish to recover. You can also recover previously deleted documents and files as long as they haven’t been overwritten with new data. Therefore, not only should you be able to retrieve any files that you have stored on the hard drive, but you should also be able to recover files that you might have recently deleted or accidentally lost. Not only can you recover files individually, you can also recover entire folders and partitions.

ParetoLogic Data Recovery Pro

One data recovery application that I have personally used and can recommend is Data Recovery by ParetoLogic Software. This link will take you to a free trial scanner that will provide you with a list recoverable files found on your computer. If the scanner finds your lost sermons, in order to recover them, you will need to purchase the fully featured product. It’s about $40 or $50 depending on which version you choose. ParetoLogic Data Recovery is designed to recover hard drives that have crashed, lost partitions, the emptied contents of the Recycle Bin, formatted media, and more. The Pro version adds e-mail recovery.

You can choose to recover only those documents that you need or you can recover everything. It’s important that you have sufficient room to save your recovered work as well. One tip that I might add is to make a back up copy of all of your sermons on CDs so that you have them should you experience another problem with your computer’s hard drive.

I have Vista and did a recovery with automatic data backup. Did I lose my photos or are they saved somewhere? How can I find them? Please help!

If you selected automatic data backup, then your photos have been saved and stored as long as you selected “pictures” as one of the file types that you wanted to save. Just to make sure I cover all angles for you, I am going to briefly go over a few things and provide solutions that should work to recover your photos.

Vista Backup with Data Recovery

Windows Vista makes backing up data easy with the special built-in feature that allows data recovery. In fact, users are offered four important ways to secure the existence of data including backing up the computer, backing up files, restoring files, and restoring the computer.

File Backup Wizard in Windows Vista

When you use the File Backup Wizard in Windows Vista, it prompts you with:

• Which files you want to back up
• Where you want to store the files (CD, DVD, server, hard disk, external hard disk)
• When you want to run the backup

Data Backup in Windows Vista

When Windows Vista backs up files, it saves them as zip files. The backup feature in Vista places the data it saves into a series of zip folders, each of which have a maximum capacity of 200 MB. The files are labeled in this way: “Backup files 2.zip,” “Backup files 3.zip,” etc. Vista backup saves files of similar type to the same zip whenever possible. Therefore, your photos should be located together in one or more zip folders.

How to Locate Your Data Backup in Windows Vista

If you want to locate your photos, then you need to open the media used for the data backup (CD, DVD, server, hard disk, external hard disk.) Next, you need to browse through the zip folders until you locate the files that you want. The file extension will be the same as the original file extension. Common file extensions for images include: .gif, .bmp, .jpeg, .png, and .tiff.

Each of the files within the zip folder will have the same name. Therefore, you will probably want to extract and save all of them to a new folder that you create on your desktop. Give the folder a name that will help you to recognize its contents.

Rename each file when you save it to its new folder so that you don’t end up with 10 files of the same name.

Data and Photo Recovery

If your photos seem to be missing, you can use a data recovery application for photo recovery. I can recommend DataRecovery, an application that can retrieve all sorts of missing data files including photos.

How do you find old email messages that have been deleted on Yahoo?

Yahoo Mail’s Trash Folder

Yahoo Mail, like many Web-based e-mail systems, offers a dedicated folder where deleted e-mail messages reside temporarily before being permanently deleted. In Yahoo’s case, this folder is aptly named the “Trash” folder. If you’ve recently deleted the messages, the Trash folder should be your first destination. However, messages can be removed from the Trash folder at any time by Yahoo, so even if you haven’t emptied it, Yahoo may have.

Once deleted from the Trash folder, these messages are gone for good (at least from Yahoo’s mail servers).

Recovering Local Copies of Yahoo Mail

If you have set up Yahoo Mail to download locally such as via POP3 access to Outlook Express or Windows Live Mail, then your options are more plentiful. Programs such as Outlook Express download the mail from online servers and save a copy of the messages on your computer. Even if you deleted the file online, if Outlook Express had previously downloaded it, then the message will be available on your computer. If you deleted the message locally, check your Deleted Items folder in see if it’s still available.

Using Data Recovery to Recover Local Copies of Yahoo Mail

If you have accessed the messages on your local computer, there’s a small chance that a data recovery product such as Data Recovery Pro can find and recover the deleted temporary files associated with viewing the Yahoo Mail on your computer. While this product does not specifically support Web-based e-mail accounts, you might try the free scanner tool to create a custom search using the term “yahoo” as part of the criteria. It’s a long shot, but worth trying.

Using Privacy Controls to View Web History  

Another option is to run the Privacy Controls scanner tool on your computer and see if you can view the deleted emails via the Internet Browsing History or Instant Messaging features. While this won’t recover the emails for you, it will reveal if they are viewable on your computer and should give you the path to the files so that you can then navigate to them individually.

Web-based e-mail is convenient in that you can access it from any Internet-connected computer. However, once e-mail has been deleted, if you don’t have a local copy, you may be out of luck.

I have a Coby 256MB flash drive that has all of my school projects on it. It is not responding when I insert it into the computer. I, was wondering if you could help.

Try a Reboot

Sometimes rebooting your computer will allow it to recognize a USB flash drive. Start by inserting the drive, then power the computer down, let it rest for a minute, then boot it back up. Log onto Windows and see if the computer can recognize the drive now. For some reason, some computers sometimes fail to see a USB drive. You might try the USB drive on another computer and see if it shows up there.

Look in My Computer

The USB flash drive should show up in the My Computer listings. Double click the My Computer icon to open, and look for the USB flash drive. If it isn’t listed, you can try updating or removing and reinstalling the UBS drivers. If it is listed, then the problem is likely the drive itself, and you might need to replace it.

Update and Reinstall Drivers

1. Click Start, then Control Panel
2. Choose System, then Hardware
3. Choose Device Manager then find the USB controllers in the list
4. Right click the USB controllers listing and choose Update
5. If you need to, right click and uninstall the drivers
6. Leave the USB flash drive plugged in and reboot the computer, it should automatically reload the drivers

Assign the Drive Letter

Another tip is to check the drive letter assignments and see if this helps the computer identify the drive.

1. Click Start, then Control Panel
2. Choose Performance and Maintenance. If you are running Classic view skip to the next step
3. Choose Administrative Tools
4. Click twice on Computer Management
5. On the left side of the screen, click Disk Management
6. Now, find the drive, partition, logical drive or volume that you want to assign a letter to - find the listing for the UBS port/flash drive - and right click it
7. Choose Add
8. Choose Assign the Following Drive Letter
9. Click to Accept, or click the drive letter that you want to assign
10. Click OK
11. Look again for the drive listing to open the USB drive

Try Data Recovery Software

If the flash drive is recognized on your computer as a drive letter but appears to be unformatted or empty, try data recovery software to see if your files are recoverable. Data Recovery from ParetoLogic Software offers a free scanner that will let you see if the files are recoverable. If so, the full featured product will need to be purchased.

Back Up your Data

Unfortunately, sometimes USB flash drives die. They aren’t the most reliable storage device and you should always back up documents that you save on them on a CD or DVD. Some users have had luck getting the USB memory chip repaired by a technician, but there is no way to know whether or not this will work. I hope that you can get to your files! Good luck!

Is there a way to retrieve a previous saved file?

Find Out If You Need Recovery Software

As long as you haven’t deleted the file from your computer, there is probably a way to find and recover a previously saved version. If you have already emptied the contents of the Recycle Bin, then you will need to buy some more advanced data retrieval software to recover the missing file like Paretologic’s Data Recovery.

Search your Computer

The first step is to look for the original file document and hope that it is still on your computer.

1. Click Start, the Search
2. On the lower left side of the window, choose Click Here to Use Search Companion
3. On the Search Companion screen, choose All Files and Folders
4. In the box called All Or Part of the File Name Box, type in the name of the file that you are looking for
5. In the Look In box, choose My Computer, and then Search

Check the Recycle Bin

If you have deleted the file from your documents or from your desktop, then you might be able to recover it from the Recycle Bin.

1. Click twice on Recycle Bin on the desktop
2. Under the View Menu, choose Details
3. Click Arrange Icons By
4. Choose Date Deleted
5. Scroll through and look for your missing file. If you find it, right click then choose Restore

Search for a Backup Copy

If not, and if the missing file is a Word Document, you can look for a saved backup copy. In Word 2007:

1.  
   • Click the Microsoft Office Button
   • Choose Word Options
   • Click Advanced
   • Scroll down to the Save section
   • Check if the Always Create a Backup setting is selected
   • If so, there is a backup
   • If not, you might want to change this setting now for the future

If the setting is selected, the backup file will be saved in the same location as the original but will have a .wbk extension instead of the usual .doc Word extension. If not, go back and repeat the steps to Search Your Computer and enter *.wbk in the Search box.

Search for a Temporary File

If you are still looking, you can try to find a version of the file in your temporary files.

1. Follow the instructions above to Search Your Computer
2. In the All Or Part of the File Name box type in *.TMP
3. Then follow the same directions as above to search the computer

I hope these tips work! Good luck!

My 12-year-old put a security password on a “SanDisk” U3 micro 4GB memory stick. I used the password 3 times and now it has locked me out and I have a lot of family photos on it. How can I open the stick and download the pictures? How can I save them so they do not delete? Please help.

SanDisk U3 Micro Memory Stick Passwords

Unfortunately, according to the SanDisk support pages, you cannot access any data from your U3 flash drive without the previously set password. If you are unable to recover, remember or otherwise locate your password, the only option that you have is to reformat the drive, and lose any data saved there.

Before we go further, humor me and try rebooting your computer with the memory stick inserted in its drive. I read an anonymous tip that rebooting with the stick in the drive and AutoPlay turned off allows you to access the drive without the password prompt. It may or may not work, but it’s worth a try.

Get Technical Assistance

I’m not an expert in passwords and accessing locked data, but I would say, before deleting your photos, that you look for the services of a technician who might be able to hack the drive. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t suggest that users circumnavigate security procedures, but I am quite sure that you aren’t interested in hacking the drive to access stolen material. In addition, password recovery tools are on the market and may work on your Sandisk Memory Stick.

Data Recovery software may also bypass the security tools. Try the free Data Recovery Scanner tool and see if it can detect your photos on your Memory Stick. If so, you’ll need to upgrade to the full featured product to recover the photos. If you must reformat the Sandisk Memory stick, try the data recovery scan after reformatting as well.

Formatting your Memory Stick

The SanDick support pages also say that the drive should give you 99 attempts to enter the correct password before locking your drive and forcing you to format it. In trying to remember or guess the password, you can try to use the SanDisk hint feature. Ask your son if he set a hint when he enabled password protection. If so, you can click Hint in the SanDisk drive log in window and it will reveal the hint that was chosen. With the hint you, or your son, might remember the password.

Backup your Data to Hard Drive and CD

While SanDisk makes flash drives that many people use to store and back up data, the company recommends that users always keep data backed up on their hard drives for safe keeping. If you are able to get the flash drive open, you can save the data on your hard drive, and even make a back up to CD to be extra safe. When the drive is open, click the files with your mouse to select all and drag them onto your desktop. You can either drop them there or save them in your photo folder. To burn them to a disk put a writable disk in the drive and wait for the empty disk folder to open then drag and drop the files here. Good luck!