I am fixing a friends virus problem and I reformatted her harddrive without thinking. I never looked for all the product keys for her installed programs from store bought cd's for cameras and other software. Now I come to find out she does not have any key's for me they were all tossed in the trash by her ex. How do I find the key's for her software. I have the install cd's if that will help with an answer.
If you pm me with your email address i have a tool that may help you recover some files from the computer. Once you reformat your pc most of the previous information/data is still there.
I have to agree with BKF, if you already reinstalled windows, then you can forget about recovering those keys, because first formatting and then overwriting with a fresh windows usually erases 90% of the old data.
ahh yes your Wright when you overwrite with a fresh windows you do lose all of the registry data and key entries but stuff that you don’t lose is some files and folders as i have used this recovery tool and it has recovered files that i thought where gone from my pc from over a year ago. if you wanna give it ago to use the recovery tool be my guest, no harm trying
humzaSM is right as can still recover info even when over written as have done that a few times with a certain program. but what humzaSM is doing is a no no in the forum rules which i want him to post here & other threads that he posted about pm'ing for that software, understand humzaSM?!
DDp: With all due respect after I do a format you won't find a thing. This has been a hot topic for a long time. It depends how you do it. Have your credit card and electron microscope ready, Our staff are waiting for your call. It has to do with left over magnetism and diminishing returns. Simple physics. I would be interested in the name of that program or programs that claim they can recover over written 1's and 0's. Let us form a new thread to talk about this. A good debate is a healthy thing.
quick format does leave residue on the hard drive,slow format does a bettet job of removing more information from the hard drive.
That's what I was talking about, the long slow full format. A quick will clear the table that points to the data so as far as the computer is concerned it's ok to overwrite that area but the data is still there. That seems to be the problem for some when it comes to vista removel. Microsoft seems to have changed the way it works with the drive compared to XP. Gutmann's data destruction method has long been a topic of debate. Good idea to save (export) a copy of you registry file once in a while as you can look at that file and see those keys. But don't keep it on your OS drive, Burned onto a Cd would be better.
Of course it's possible to still retrieve some data, but the chance of retrieving several product keys would be veeeeery slim. The chances of being able to retrieve enough of the registry to extract those keys would be minimal at best.
DDP: You won't get a thing off one of my formated drives. Please provide the name of this program so I can write them and tell them they are full of bull. Fiend: It's about zip to -10. Their not going to see a thing. A low level format followed by a reguar format. It takes it beyond the hardware level of recovery. Why do so many have a problem with this concept. I don't care what program you have, It's not going to work. Still interested in the program name though because I still want to bash them.
Here's the lowdown on formatting.. All it actually does is wipe the file allocation table. A low-level format does a sector/surface check as well. 99% of the data is still on the drive, but without the file table the OS can't see any of it. There are various programs that can access the data as raw binary info. The one that comes to mind is the dump facility of active@killdisk. If you have reinstalled windows the chances are it's gone in exactly the same place on the drive and overwritten all the previous data.
this is the program i've been using. http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoveryprofessional/ quick format takes about a minute depending oh hd size, standard format is upwards of 30 minutes or less depending on hd size. low level format depends on hd size & haven't done that in a while except for diagnostics.
Ok I tried that program: How I got it is my problem. I ran it across a recent dumped drive and it came up blank. DDP sir you must be working with a bunch of armatures. But the debate is a good thing! Ken The program has been removed. Lord knows I have enough. lol oh I forgot happy new year to you and everybody. AD is a good place and I learn much! edit wish i could learn how to spell. And no I don't want to be a mod
