File recovery software!?

[Harry_Greatorex]

Right,

 

I have been a bit of an idiot. Our deputy head here had a problem with his PC so i reimaged it. When it was done, he logged on and asked me where all his documents were. Turns out he was saving to the local C drive instead of his network home drive. he apparently had 18+ months worth of lessons plans and Ofsted data and he needs it urgently. I have run some recovery tools and managed to get back 13GB of word documents/powerpoints/PDFs however none of them open. Is there any ideally free software which can repair the broken files? Any help is massively appreciated.

 

Kind Regards

Harry

 

P.S; i know I should have checked his local profile first...

[Steve21]

Tried TestDisk or Recuva?

 

Steve

[Tirito]

Recuva

 

https://www.piriform.com/recuva

[3s-gtech]

I have been a bit of an idiot.

 

No. You have made a genuine mistake. He has been an idiot for saving them in a non-backed up location (especially if your policies point against doing that).

 

As you've installed the OS onto the same disk, there's a good chance that the files will mostly be irretrievable, especially if Disk Optimization had been defragmenting them to the beginning of the disk, where they may have had sections overwritten by the new install.

 

Office can be quite effective at recovering its own files (go to Open, browse for the file and select the filetype as Recover text). I have had success with PDFAid https://pdfaid.com/repair-pdf-file.aspx for PDFs.

[ITGuyWestMidlands]

Been here before but i refused to accept responsibility. Best to hide system drives.

[Chuckster]

I accidentally re-imaged my wife's laptop and forgot to completely backup her Pictures folder.

 

I used this: File Recovery - Kroll Ontrack UK

 

It not only recovered all her pictures from the Pictures folder, but it also recovered large swathes of other data going back years. I swear by it and it's 10 times better than Recuva and the like.

 

P.S. Commiserations.