The Hoboken Cafe 

Help............

When I put MS Word XP onto my computer yesterday, I wiped out everything on it!!!! I've heard that there is a possibility that my info is still inside my computer somewhere! Yes, Mike......... this was a Sex & The City episode!

Before I take my computer to Flashtech (on Wash Street) that charges $65. per hour, I would like to hear what my chances are of getting everything back!

I'm sooooo depressed about this!!!

To clarify, I just called up Christine and it is the operating system (Windows XP) not Word XP (application) which does make a difference. I never heard of an application blowing away data. I do know it might move data around. But, an operation system upgrade may blow everything away if you do not chose the right options.

Sorry Christine.

Yes, everything is gone. I spoke to someone at Flashtech (on Wash. St) to see if it was worth it to try to recover everything. I was told that it would take a lot of time (& I know they chg. $65./hr) & they couldn't guarantee they'd get anything back. It could just be bit & pieces of things and you can't retrieve software, so i just have to reinstall everything...........MAJOR Bummer!!!!!!

I don't even know what all was lost. i did save some things to disc, but others.....lost....lost forever!!!!!!!!!

Just curious but what operating system was on
the machine before? My suggestion next time is
to partition your drives first...

Thanks, but I don't even know what that means.

It was Windows '98. Now, I have Windows XP and my computer hasn't been the same. I am still having problems installing my Norton Firewall 2002 prof. ed. and the Norton Anti virus sometimes doesn't start up.

Did you format the drive and start from scratch when you installed XP, or did you install it over top of windows 98?

I've got XP running on a relatively new notebook computer and Norton Anti-virus runs perfectly -- better than it ever did on 98 for me. I don't use Norton's firewall tho... I use a free one called ZoneAlarm (available from download.com) which I love...

Thank you for the info! I am downloading the ZoneAlarm now.

I don't know what I did. I'm one of those people that learned by doing....I never had any computer courses.

When I downloaded the XP, it wiped out everything. The Norton anti-virus says that there is some kind of script error and the Norton Firewall says Error 1402...could not open key....blah, blah, blah. I paid over $100. for these & the clean sweep software.

Sounds like you might not have started from "scratch"... if most of your important stuff was wiped out anyway, you might want to consider re-formatting the hard drive and starting over completely. You'd want to back up everything you've done since first though. I'm sure someone here could help you out with it, or I could try to step you through it if you decide to go that route. I'm in the midst of packing up my life for my grand exit from this wonderful city we call Hoboken :(, so things are a bit crazy, but if you need a hand feel free to drop me an email and I'll see if I can help.

Thank you so much! That's very nice. Jerry (GM613) offered
to take a look, so I will probably take him up on it.

Leaving Hoboken? Where are you going? I don't think I ever met you in person.