[Alex Ethridge]

With all the access denied errors and inaccessible folders, I'm beginning to wonder how Vista is going to affect data recovery programs like Easy Recovery Pro.

To make this easier to understand, I'll give certain things a simple name:
Vista1 is the original installation of Vista that came from the factory
Vista2 is a copy of Vista installed onto the same hard disk, after formatting the disk.

Let's say I have a hard disk brought to me for data recovery. The data that is to be recovered was in the Documents and Settings folder of Vista1. Now Vista2 has been installed as stated in the paragraph above.

How is the fact that this is Vista going to affect data recovery?

[Bob Cerelli]

Install the program and give it a try recovering deleted files.

The harder part would be if the location for the original Documents and Settings folder was overwritten by the new install. They are not deleted files. They are overwritten files. Any data recovery software is going to have problems if that is the case regardless of the OS.

[Alex Ethridge]

I would install the program and give it a go; but, I'm not ready to spend the bucks for Vista just yet and I don't have time right now to spend setting up a machine for experimentation. Also, I don't know how Microsoft's stricter permissions for moving a copy of Vista from one system to another is going to shake out so I don't want to install/activate it on a system knowing it is just temporary.

My hope is that someone understands Vista's file system/permissions better than I and could give me some pointers/caveats.

Thanks but I already know that overwritten files are generally unrecoverable (by all but the most sophisticated means). The question is whether the fact that this is Vista (as opposed to any previous version of Windows) has any affect on the data recovery program being able to read what was left behind by Vista1 when the drive has been formatted and Vista2 has been installed.

[Bob Cerelli]

Since when you try and restore a file with that program, it needs to be restored to another location, it is just like any other file copying. Nothing special there.

But what was mentioned in the first post is very different from the last.

In the first post, you were concerned about what would happen if you formatted a drive, reinstalled Vista, and tried to recover files that were in the original Documents and settings location.

Now it is "moving a copy of Vista from one system to another".

Can you give more details for what it is exactly you want Easy Recovery to do.

[downtime]

I messed Vista up experimenting and had to do a complete system restore. I had done a defrag three days before I messed it up playing with partitions. I did the restore from DVDs, the image was from a month before. Even though it said it was formatting the disk and everything would be lost, when I went to defrag after the restore, to defrag before playing with partitioning again, defrag said the last date it had been run was three days before. So, it may have formatted the disk, but somehow retained data created nearly a month after the restore disks were created. It appears a format with Vista, at least with the Complete System Backup, isn't the same kind of format windows has done in the past. I don't know if a fresh Vista install would do the same type of thing, recognizing Vista had been installed before on the same disk, but if it reformatted as it said, I don't see how it retained the defrag date data. If a fresh install does save data from an earlier install, it could really affect/increase the recoverability of files.

[Alex Ethridge]

Bob,

Paragraph one of my last post was just an aside on why I don't experiment with Vista. The question still remains as it was and is still the same as stated in paragraph three and four of my first post and paragraph three of my second post.

downtime,

I don't understand what your post has to do with data recovery programs and how they might work differently (or the same) under Vista.

[downtime]

Well, if a complete computer backup says it's going to format the drive, you would assume everything would be gone. I've seen that's not the case. I know Vista has a different mbr, maybe the data from defragging is stored there. But as Vista is a compressed image, it likely installs each time to the same space on a hard drive, leaving the data that's entered after installation to a space further along on the hard drive. A user doesn't usually start creating data until programs are installed, and the machine is configured. If you installed Vista a second time, it would be a while before the space on the hard drive that the documents data was written to is overwritten. To me, that would make it more likely that the sectors would only have been formatted, and not overwritten. If Vista's use of ntfs is more efficient than earlier versions of windows, and that would equal less fragmentation, it would give you a better chance of recovering data. If it does no better at fragmentation than XP, I would imagine the chances would be the same. In any case, data recovery programs can look at a disk in raw format, without requiring it to look for boot records, partition tables etc. So if Vista handles fragmentation better, and keeps files more contiguous, I would expert a better chance of recovering data.

[Bob Cerelli]

"But as Vista is a compressed image, it likely installs each time to the same space on a hard drive, leaving the data that's entered after installation to a space further along on the hard drive. "

"If you installed Vista a second time, it would be a while before the space on the hard drive that the documents data was written to is overwritten. "

Is any of that a certainty or an assumption? Haven't seen anything on the Internet related to that as a certainty.

[downtime]

From apcmag.com
We asked Microsoft Australia Technology Specialist for Windows Client, John Pritchard how it all works and got some surprising answers.
Dan Warne: Vista’s “image based install” basically means that what you get on your Vista DVD is a preinstalled image of Vista, is that right?
John Pritchard: Yes, what users’ DVDs will contain is the install Windows Imaging (.WIM) file, which is basically our operating system folders wrapped up into one image file.
The users will put their DVD in, boot off it and run the setup and it will look to them like they are doing an install, but what it is really doing is grabbing the install.wim and executing that as an upgrade or clean install depending on what the user wants.
Dan Warne: So it’s basically decompressing a preinstalled version of Vista onto the hard drive, and when you do an upgrade, it’s basically putting a clean install of Vista on there and migrating your XP settings into Vista, right?
John Pritchard: Yes, that’s right, it’s a compressed image. We will ship it with fast compression, and then users just need to have the space on the hard disk for that image to be offloaded and decompressed.
There’s also the advantage that it is file-based, not sector-based image, so you can install the image onto your hard drive without overwriting other data.

I was under the impression this was a discussion board, my mistake.

[Bob Cerelli]

It is good to know that after a complete format, and a reinstall a second of Vista, all pre-exiting data from before the reinstall will be retained.

[Alex Ethridge]

You guys are dancing all around what I would like to know so here it is again but worded a little differently:

How is access denied errors, inaccessible folders and the extra security in Vista that is the source of these error messages and inaccessibility going to affect data recovery programs' ability to recover files as described in the scenario presented in my initial post?

To be clear, overwritten data is a separate issue and has nothing to do with my question.

[Bob Cerelli]

"To be clear, overwritten data is a separate issue and has nothing to do with my question"

While it might not be your question, it very well might be the situation.

The scenario as described in that first post leaves the possibility of data being overwritten to be fairly high. It is regarding "Let's say I have a hard disk brought to me for data recovery. The data that is to be recovered was in the Documents and Settings folder of Vista1. Now Vista2 has been installed as stated in the paragraph above." and "Vista2 is a copy of Vista installed onto the same hard disk, after formatting the disk."

So far I haven't seen it documented that after formatting a hard drive and installing Vista, there is any certainty that the My Documents folder mentioned in the very first post won't be overwritten.

The other post "it’s basically putting a clean install of Vista on there and migrating your XP settings into Vista, right" doesn't have anything to do with your situation You are not asking about migrating or even having XP. Just a formatted hard drive.

So if the data is overwritten, it is unlikely you would be able to retrieve data any more or less successfully because Vista is on the computer.

[Bob Cerelli]

Of course something you can easily do is try it.

1. Install Vista on a Computer
2. Add data files (this is actually rather undefined as to where the data files were put and is rather vague from the first post for effective testing to be repeatable). For example, was a clean install of Vista done, data files added, with no programs installed). This seems like a rather unlikely scenario. Typically and operating system is installed. Some programs get installed. Data files get created. Perhaps more programs are installed or deleted. Web browsing creates temporary Internet files. More data gets added. Etc. It's typically not all in one big section.
3. Format the drive
4. Install Vista (again rather vague from the first post). No other programs or data files were copied. Just a format and reinstall of Vista? Or were other programs and data copied as well like most users do?. Also is the same user account created as in the first installation. Again vague but significant.
5. Take out the drive
6. Connect it to another computer with Easy Recovery installed
7. See what you can recover.

[downtime]

I did a recovery on hard drives from a 2003 Enterprise Server about two months ago. The Vista code is supposed to be based on the Server 2003 code. The disks were mirrored, so dynamic disks. In raw format, I was able to recover everything, without any permission problems at all. That's all I got.

[Bob Cerelli]

Did you format the hard drive, reinstall the operating system and then recovery data. That is the scenario being asked about in the first post.

Otherwise it is pretty simple. As long as the data isn't overwritten it can be recovered.

Also the scenario here is way different than what was mentioned earlier - "when you do an upgrade, it’s basically putting a clean install of Vista on there and migrating your XP settings into Vista". It is not an upgrade or migration. It is recovering data files after the hard drive was formatted and the operating system was put on again. Otherwise it is like any other operating system upgrade. If you don't format, the data files should be left in place. But again, not what is being asked.

Again might want to test given the initial scenario. OS installed. Hard drive formatted. OS installed again. Then recover the original files in Documents and Settings. It is tough however with so little information to go on regarding what was on that original install. How many users. How and when was data put on. How and when were programs installed etc. All that has a great bearing on whether data files are likely to be overwritten after the format was done.,