Help with dumb customer, del *.*

One of my biggest customers (and my dumbest) has given me my biggest headache.

One of the lads on our tech support desk, whilst performing routine work removing files from the customers PC, has done DEL *.*. I don't know who's fault it is, and dont care, I've got to sort it.

The setup and the problem. Its a dos based system, 2 PC's networked together using CAT5 cross over cable. The command was performed on the remote PC, deleting the files on the server. It uses basic dos networking where X: is the drive, nothing special. To rebuild the files and the system will take days and I cannot rebuild it entirely, and then weeks for them them to input the data, IF they have paper copies, and get this NO BACKUP, apparently it stopped working and they forgot to tell us!! Does anyone know of a way to retrieve the deleted files.

I'm due on site 9am Monday morning, any help is more than appreciated.

There are programs out there that can recover this information, go to a software store and ask for data recovery programs. I use one called Lost & Found. Do NOT use the affected machines until you get one of these programs, and ESPECIALLY do not do anything with them that will write more information back to the disk. Lost & Found will require another drive for you to back the recovered files up to.

You should be able to recover the vast majority of what was lost.

Check this site out, hopefully it will help

<a href="http://users.cybercity.dk/~bse26236/batutil/help/UNDEL_S.HTM" target="_blank">http://users.cybercity.dk/~bse26236/batutil/help/UNDEL_S.HTM</a>

undelete has been tried and has been unsuccessful, although that will be the first thing I will attempt.

Both PC's have been left on, and have not been touched.

Try Easy Recovery Professional Edition works from within windows and is supposed to be very good at file retrival.
Other suggestions would be Tiramisu,Lost and found and Nortons Undelete.

What version of DOS, Are you running Windows or simular?

Both are running DOS 6.22.

Even if the undelete command does work, it may cause more problems. Alot of the files I'm trying to recover are dates, ie: ddmmyyyy.dat, which are vital, I have no way of knowing the first character! Why can't life be simple..?

Here are some DOS Disk Utilities
There is a download for Tiramisu on the first link, and other utilities that might help


<a href="http://www.simtel.net/pub/msdos/diskutil/" target="_blank">http://www.simtel.net/pub/msdos/diskutil/</a>

Thanks for all your help, I tried to use Tiramisu from the link you provided Eagle but this struggled retrieving the information, although there are some other good utils in this link.

I've ended up getting a copy of Easyrecovery from <a href="http://www.ontrack.com," target="_blank">www.ontrack.com,</a> which is currently running as I type. A great piece of software which has found more files than I wanted!

I've yet to find out what state the files are in, so it might be a bit premature saying its great, but fingers crossed I'll find out in about an hour or so...