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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: STEPHEN MOSKOVITZ who wrote (7308)	12/11/1999 11:56:00 PM
From: mr.mark	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110583

hi stephen, i'm glad i was able to help you once. unfortunately it looks like my string is going to be broken at one in a row... i know dos like i know duh. and i don't feel knowledgeable enough to dispense ideas and advice on file recovery. i'll have to sit this one out. but have faith, as help should soon arrive. :) mark

To: STEPHEN MOSKOVITZ who wrote (7308)	12/13/1999 4:45:00 AM
From: Green Receipt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110583

Hi Stephen, I was asked to take a look, so here I am. What you described is not an experience that people like to experience. If your friend hasn't created any new files since he did the delete, there is a fair chance that if you go and get an old version of Norton utilities (NU) you can recover the missing files by performing the unerase command supplied by norton. In DOS / Win 16 (95, 98) The directory is simply a table that is stored on the disk. It has the name of the file, date last modified, some other stuff, and a pointer to where the file is located on the disk. When you 'del' a file you are not removing the file from the disk, instead, DOS / Windows, changes the name of the file in the table. It obfuscates the first character. If you restore the character back to it's proper letter/number, then the file will magically reappear. Example: before the 'del command' filename size date start address dog.txt 100 10/10/95 0x00f3d210 cat.txt 999 09/09/99 0xab0000ab bat.txt 555 09/08/99 0xcddead00 After the del command (Not sure of the exact obfuscate char) filename size date start address æog.txt 100 10/10/95 0x00f3d210 æat.txt 999 09/09/99 0xab0000ab æat.txt 555 09/08/99 0xcddead00 I haven't done this trick in years, but it does work. I don't remember the obfuscation character, but its something like the one i used. It will be obvious if you dig into it. The unerase command looks for filenames starting with that funky character and prompts you to enter the first character. But you can see from the last two files in my fake directory, knowing which one is cat and which one is bat is a matter of hit and miss. plus it might have been 'mat' ... To make matters worse, if all you saw was the deleted version, it might have been that the one modified on 9/8/99 really was deleted and on the 9/9/99, the user saved the new one. If that was the case, then restoring the 9/8/99 file could potentially lead to crossed files (2 or more files pointing to the same data on the hard drive. This way would work but can be very time consuming. However, there are usually thousands of files in the \WIN directory. And going this route will take a bit of time. If your friend has created any new files since the delete and his drive was pretty full, chances are, some of the \win files will be missing (DOS/Win reuses space). Now legally speaking, its probably a violation of the license if you use your win95 disks on his computer. And general speaking, the upgrade disks/cd check for a certain set of files on the hard drive. If your friend has really deleted the files, then the upgrade won't work anyway. But in general, if he can get his hands on some Win95 setup disks he should be able to recover nicely. What system does he have, and when he did the del . command, did he recurse? That is, did he also remove all the subdirectories? I ask this because, some manufacturers, don't give you restore disks/cds, but they often create a 'cab' directory in the \win directory. Take a look to see if he has a \cab directory (probably in the \win directory). If he does 'cd cab' and take a look at the files. Chances are there will be a 'setup' program there. If so, he can restore from that. If he doesn't have anything, if he had a legal copy of win95 on his machine to start, his computer company (where he bought it) should have supplied him with a setup CD or disks. If they didn't, he should go back to the company and assert his rights. I have a Packard bell, and they didn't ship the restore cd with the machine, I complained, paid a $10 SHIPPING charge and got my restore disk and CD for free. There may be exceptions to the rule. See if you can do any of those things. if so, then you are in business. If not, provide me with the name of the manufacturer of the computer, the type (486,586, pentium, etc) model number, and I'll see where to go from there. Good luck and I hope it works out! David PS is your friend in the VA/DC/MD area?