my friend accedently deleted her profile in xp..now all her mails & datas are missing.Can someone help me to recover those datas for her..
thomas

I may be wrong, but I don't believe that this is possible mate, depending on how it was deleted. If it was deleted through 'User Accounts' in the Control Panel, and the documents weren't shared or backed up on to a separate drive, then I think it might be gone forever. Particularly if data has been written to the drive since the deletion occurred.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

It is always useful to keep a backup of the personal user profile of a user in a different location in the Hard Drive . If the computer is used in a network environment then it is always better to copy the user profile to Server.

This user profile could be recovered by using System Restore.

Go to Start---->All Programs----->Accessories----->System Tools-----> System Restore.

You can also create your own restore point or use the by default system restore option.

Try this system restore and then let us know.

thank you mate.I also think so.And when I tried through recover software still its not possible
thomas

Did you try system restore?

I don't believe System Restore can help. Because basically System Restore has to do with system state settings, reg keys, etc, and does not undo user tasks like the creation of deletion of documents. In the same way that if you did a System Restore to a point two days ago it wouldn't remove a word document (for instance) that didn't exist then, it cannot add something that was already deleted in present time. As far as I understand the only reason that System Restore can 'undo' the installation of some software, is that software being installed means that your Control Set Reg Keys have been altered, library files have been added, and so on. These types of files are within the jurisdiction of System Restore, because it has been monitoring them since the computer was put together. However user activity such as the creation and deletion of files and documents, are totally left to the user and the OS has no command over it in that sense. Which is a good thing I feel.

Actual files should still be recoverable, unless overwritten. Did you try recovery software? Some will even restore the profile itself.... but for files you could try REST2514.exe. Dl it with another sys and run it from a floppy or thumbdrive, it does not install so no risk of overwriting there.
I do not know if it can recover email .dbx files such as for OE...

This is the reason you should have data backups even at home.

Good shout Chizy, that's been my practice. People don't realise the importance sadly until something goes wrong.

Do you know about application backups though, I mean if your hard drive gets wiped by a virus, even if your documents are backed up elsewhere, what about your programs (which no doubt would have accumulated depending on how long you've had the computer for)? It is tedious to have to reinstall it one after the other.

I would say that only 1 in about 10,000 home users actually back up their data. At least that is how it seems to me.