I have a bit of a dilemma,
A while ago I was building a new pc to replace the old family one, I didn't buy a hdd as I though you could just stick the one from the old pc into the new one and you would be all set. Turns out that is not the case. At the time I had no idea that windows and what not is bonded to the mobo also, so I just took out the hard drive and stuck it in the new pc. I had a bunch of trouble doing anything on the new pc with this old hdd so I took it out and placed it back in the old pc. It started being a pain too but by some miracle I managed to get it to its original state...somewhat. After putting the original hdd back in its original pc after being in another pc, Microsoft office had disappeared, as well as some documents and all of the photos on it. Office is no longer a problem, but the the lack of photos is. Are these photos gone? Am I able to get them back?
I defiantly wont be making such a naive mistake in the future.
Any help appreciated
if all you did not do anything softwarewise with the hdd then the photos are still there.
how did you get the old computer working again? did you run some sort of windows repair?
pffttt, i honestly can't remember, it was about a month ago and after hopelessly searching for a file with all the previous photos I couldn't find anything
if the files are just deleted you might be able to get back quite a few of them by running a file recovery programme. i've done this one hard drives int eh past but that was on a mac, not windows.
lexar has an application called Image Rescue. there might be a windows version or you could get a similar application from another developer.
boot into a linux live cd/flash drive (with hdd connected) and then look through the drive for the file
I believe you haven't lost them, but windows doesn't see them. I believe windows can see them by them being in the windows registry. I don't believe they would show up in the registry in any computer but the one they were first added to. You can most definitely re-add them. That will work no problem. First you have to just get them off the drive. I'd try a hdd recovery program. Those search the hdd section by section to recover data after a hdd fails. That should look threw the whole drive and find the pics :)
Thanks for the help everyone, ill try what caveman said once I get home.