Data Recovery

This guide will walk you through a few different methods to backup data on a downed system. As long as the drive itself isn't damaged, dead, encrypted, or otherwise inaccessible, then this guide should be able to help you out! If that drive is having problems to the point where you can't pull any of that data off, then you'll want to take it to a professional to get your data recovered.

The only kinds of data you'll want to backup are files (Pictures, documents, saved files, etc). It is not recommended to try and backup programs. Many of them when they are originally installed add certain registry files and other things to Windows that will be missing if you try and transfer them over to a new installation. In addition, the more complex programs will recognize they are on a different installation, and for fear of being pirated they will prevent themselves from working properly if at all. And even worse, if a certain program has any corruption of any kind, copying it over to your new install of Windows could corrupt your new installation as well!

Most if not all programs you've installed on the system can be reinstalled without much hassle. Even if it required a license key to activate it to begin with, you should be able to get it reinstalled and working without much hassle. You paid for one active installation at a time, so because we are wiping out the old one completely you shouldn't run into any licensing troubles. Even so, if you are nervous about a specific program, check with the support for that program and they should let you know everything you need to get it working again on the new installation.

So in short, we only want to backup FILES, and NOT PROGRAMS.

If you are wanting to backup saved game files, you most likely don't need to worry about those either. If you are playing any newer game on any of the newer game clients, most of them backup your saved games to the cloud. That means once you reinstall the game you should be able to pickup from where you left off without any problems (Although if you want to be sure you can check online for each specific game)

Note that during the windows reinstall process, the only drive we HAVE to erase is your C: drive. That means if you have other drives in the system that you don't want to lose data on, as long as you don't delete them during the reinstall, then your data should retain!