Recovering Files After Laptop Sent for Repair

Using PhotoRec to recover lost data
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cassiek
Posts: 1
Joined: 12 Jan 2019, 19:18

Recovering Files After Laptop Sent for Repair

#1 Post by cassiek »

As a backstory: My laptop was taken by an ex before I had the chance to fully backup my files. I thought I uploaded them to Cloud storage, but of course they are largely missing. This individual then did whatever with the laptop, resulting in the blue screen. Since the laptop was still under warranty, they sent it in for repair. Now they've decided to give me the laptop back, of course void of all my pictures.

I'm desperate at this point, as these were photos of the first year of my son's life. I understand I should have backed them up more carefully, but hindsight is 20/20. I've tried running both TestDisk and PhotoRec. PhotoRec has recovered thousands of images, with the vast majority being the same images repeated hundreds of times over. They mostly appear to be web-based images and the few this individual loaded onto the laptop after the restore.

Ultimately my question is is there any way to even recover these photos given that the laptop was sent to the manufacturer for repair? I've looked through hundreds of folders at this point and haven't seen a single missing image.

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cgrenier
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Re: Recovering Files After Laptop Sent for Repair

#2 Post by cgrenier »

Have you seen any files from before the computer has been sent for repair ? The disk may have been changed...
Have you make the mistake to store the recovered files on the partition you were recovering from ? It can explain why you have recovering the same files again and again.

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