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Computer Help!

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout' started by twhy77, Apr 11, 2008.

  1. twhy77

    twhy77 Member

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    So, I work for a major mortgage company doing Loss Mitigation. I use my e-fax inbox through Outlook to handle short sale packages and requests for loan modifications that people will send me. Most of this information was stored in my Archive folder, which saved to my local hard drive.

    I had a seperate problem happen with a software application that could not be fixed, and the IT guys told me they would need to reinstall Windows. They copied all of my information onto a shared server. Apparently, my archive folder was saved on the hard drive in a location that was not copied to the shared server. I now have none of the 60+ short sale packages and workout packages that I need to do my job. I really don't want to call back 60+ people and ask them to refax their documents to me. IT told me that it was lost.

    Any smart IT clutchfans willing to prove them wrong? Help!
     
  2. Prometheus

    Prometheus Member

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    So they reinstalled windows?

    If they reformatted the hard drive then you wont get your data back.
     
  3. twhy77

    twhy77 Member

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    That's what they said. Crap.
     
  4. pirc1

    pirc1 Member

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    You are hosed. Why do they allow you to save your data on local harddrive in the first place? They should have setup accounts on your LAN WAN so that the data is always backed up.
     
  5. Jeremiah

    Jeremiah Member

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    That's true for normal users, but there are services out there that can get your data off the hard drive. Using Windows, you don't really 'delete' anything. The only way it was deleted was a low-level format with the data being overwritten with 1s and 0s.

    Anyway, the services are pretty pricey- $1000s of dollars. I would make a lot of noise about this and blame it on the IT guys- it's their responsibility to make sure all of the data is moved. Make them pay for the retrieval.
     
  6. twhy77

    twhy77 Member

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    I have no clue; I started like 3 years ago and they were like here's how you set up your archive folder...apparently they were morons.
     
  7. Lil Pun

    Lil Pun Member

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    I thought there were special software and tools available for this type of thing?
     
  8. pirc1

    pirc1 Member

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    Just call the 60 people back, trust me it is much easier.
     
  9. twhy77

    twhy77 Member

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    The IT guy was pretty upset about it, recognized it was his fault, he's only been here a week so I'm cutting him a little slack.

    My company, if forced with the choice of spending a 1K to get info back or making me call 60+ realtors will probably choose the latter.

    Argghh. I feel like I just got hit by a nuclear bomb. As if a job on the frontlines of the Subprime Mortgage slump wasn't stressful enough. :(
     
  10. Lil Pun

    Lil Pun Member

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    That's what I thought. Nothing get deleted, right? It just gets marked sort of as this can be replaced or overwritten.
     
  11. pirc1

    pirc1 Member

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    You do not know what type of reformat they did. If it is 1/0 there is nothing left.
     
  12. Lil Pun

    Lil Pun Member

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    What is 1/0? I mean I know that is binary but is that a specialized type of format?
     
  13. twhy77

    twhy77 Member

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    Here was the more technical explanation the IT guy just gave me, "Apparently, something broke."
     
  14. candlegreen

    candlegreen Member

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    Yeah, unless they really zeroed your hard drive, you can still get it back, but it won't be cheap.

    Your IT guy should really have a good image of your hard drive before they delete things, but you know what?... this stuff happens and I'm sure the guy won't likely make that mistake again. It's one of the tough luck, but easiest way to learn.

    Calling the clients back won't be as bad as I'm sure you're imagining it. Let them know the situation and I'm sure 55+ out of the 60 will be very understanding. Those 0-5 that aren't, well, just probably had a bad day. At any rate, things will go over ok.
     
  15. demon77

    demon77 Member

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  16. Lil Pun

    Lil Pun Member

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  17. pirc1

    pirc1 Member

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    It is a very low level formatting. Computer files are all based on 1 and 0. So a letter is a sequence of 1s and 0s in a certain pattern. If you write everything to some type of 1s and 0s that the system no longer understand (basically a bunch of garbage for all practical purpose). Then you cannot recover the files. If they have not wrote over every byte, the information is still there, you just have to figure out where each file start and end etc, that's how you recover files.
     
  18. ling ling

    ling ling Member

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    You don't have a netbackup/ backup exec / or that type of client/server backup application running at your company?
     
  19. Prometheus

    Prometheus Member

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    LOL, that is so mean!!
     
  20. MoBalls

    MoBalls Member

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    Your archiving is default to save on your hardrive. You have to either be told or change the default location to a network drive. I like the way IT guys are made out to be stupid when something goes wrong for a computer user. When they fix something...they are heroes. LOL Yeah, he should have backed them up before formatting. I learned a long time ago to back up my files and never save archive, pst files locally. Looks like your screwed.
     

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