Data Loss After Reinstallation

When a computer is reinstalled the users often forget to save important data like e-mail, favourites or music files. Depending on how it was reinstalled, the chances for a successful data recovery are good.

Operating system is installed from a setup CD

The hard drive or partition is formatted and the operating system reinstalled onto it. If the same operating system or another with approximately the same size was installed, it's probable that important files are not overwritten. Often the same sectors are used for saving the operating system as before.

Especially new notebooks and computers have a recovery partition on the storage device. There are three different options:

Unattended setup

This is executed like a normal re-installation. Most likely only those sectors will be overwritten that contained the former operating system and the user data is still physically available.

Data is copied from an image of a complete installation

A complete installation can be located on the recovery partition and only the defective files get overwritten. With this case, data recovery should be possible.

Sector copy from the recovery partition

The complete image is loaded onto the hard drive sector by sector. Data may be overwritten and lost in the process.

Data rescue after re-installation

If you realize you forgot to save important data during a re-installation, cancel the process immediately! It increases the chance that your data hasn't been overwritten yet. Attingo developed its own software and has over 27 years of experience with recovering data of formatted storage media.