HELP!!! My son accidently ran a system restore on my Vista computer.I have lost everything on it.?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/U...

The system that has been reverted should immediately be turned off. Everytime you use it, some data areas will be overwritten and the data still on the drive will be lost.

You might recover some of the data with a data recovery program like Recuva. Instructions are on the website.

Use a different computer than the affected system, go to the Piriform website and download the portable version of Recuva.

http://www.piriform.com/recuva/builds

Then extract the contents of the ZIP file to a folder. Then get a blank USB flash drive and copy those files to the USB drive.

Restart the affected computer, and after it has completely booted up, insert the USB drive. Using Windows Explorer, find the Recuva.exe file, and click it.

First screen, click NEXT>

Second screen, click the button for "Pictures", then click NEXT>

Third screen, click NEXT>

Fourth screen, click the box "Enable Deep Scan", then click NEXT>

The scan will begin, and as the program looks at every unallocated sector on the drive, this will take a very long time. If the drive is 200 GB, it can take a couple of hours.

After it finishes, it will present you with a list of what it has found, and that list can be huge. Select what files you want and copy them to the USB flash drive.

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I will add to what the others have told you.

How old is your son ?

Does he really understand the difference between System Restore and a factory software restore ?

The computer manufacturers are to blame for the confusion, because they should call the "factory software restore" a "factory software re-installation" as it wipes out all existing data and puts the original factory software back on the disk. It's the only way to wipe out malicious software sometimes.

Adding to the confusion is another type of "restore" - which one of my Compaq computers has - which attempts to do the same thing that the Microsoft System Restore does. I removed the Compaq software from my computer after I tested it because the computer would not work correctly.

The Microsoft System Restore should not delete data; its purpose is to "restore" Microsoft program files and manufacturer's drivers from an earlier date.

there is a big difference between SYSTEM Restore and the Restore to factory Original. It would depend on what he did if everything is lost. On a Dell using Ctrl+F11 key wipes everything out and puts it back to original, HP I think is F10 key, only two I am familiar with. When you do a simple system restore you are just going back to a date and settings and can easily be undone. The option to undo last restore is on the system restore page, go to your control panel, in the programs find the system restore, usually under system tools, click that and then see if the undo last restore option is there., if not you can either make a date or use one from the calender, I have best luck creating a date and then run the system restore. If your son did just a simple system restore and not the back to original this should help.

Restore back to the latest date. All a System Restore does is restore a backup of the registry - it has nothing to do with your files.

If he reinstalled Windows (or restored Windows to factory condition), download PhotoRec http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec (not TestDisk from the same site - you probably won't need to go that far) and recover any missing files that haven't been overwritten. (Test Disk recovers lost partitions.)

Recovering files that have been overwritten won't cost you $1,000 - it STARTS

at MANY thousands. (It involves a clean lab, a scanning electron microscope and people who earn a LOT of money running one.) Unless it's the password to Fort Knox, it's probably not worth what it will cost.

A system restore is entirely reversible and does not lose data. Your son reformatted the computer and all the data is permanently gone. However, he did not do it accidentally. There are multiple steps involved. He knew what he was doing.

Why was this stuff not backed up someplace?

ok give up. before you do something, virus test those information. the final ingredient you want to do is infect yet another partition. you mustn't lose the information till the only previous restoration element became into made before you had any of those information. in case you want to go them to a diverse partition, that's all properly and good, only confirm there is not any contaminated song or pictures and so on.

Nothing you can do without extensive knowledge of computers. I'm sure tere are programs and such out there. If u really want it I would suggest not using the computer until someone can look at it.

As i know, system restore doesn't delete files on hard disc...

system restore tottally cleans u system so that it is like it was the day u bought it. so yes i think you have lost everything on it. im really sorry about all of your loss :( i would ground u son for tha rest of his life. i wouldnt let him back on the computer..

go to my computer acer drive my old disk structure or something like that. I forget it was My old something. If it';s not there than your screwed