Undeleteing (Xp NTFS)

[cpvh]

Hi All,

Itoones went and "lost" all it's playlists.

I am hopeing that this was because the files somehow got deleted and they are sitting on the drive somewhere.

I have Norton 360 backing up the drive daily, but in it's infinite wisdom it seems it didn't back up these files! :=(( I shall have to have words with the brain dead beast!

As far as I can tell from a quick groups search there is no undelete included with XP as standard and you have to use a 3rd party program?

I found

which claims to have a trial version available and looks legit, but I am a bit wary of clicking links and downloading stuff from sites I don't know.

Can anyone vouch for the above site, or have any other suggestions.

TIA

Chris

[Mike Clarke]

I don't know about winundelete but I have used Handy Recovery . The free 30 day trial version will only let you undelete 1 file per day but there's an apparently legit licenced copy of the full version on the "Ultimate Boot CD for Windows" . UBCD4Win is based on BartPE and appears to be in widespread use so should be safe.

[NT]

generally you dont want an undelete that runs under any modern version of windows, as when win boots or the software is installed its likely to overwrite the files to be undeleted. So I'd switch off the pc power

- not shut down in windows - and boot up from a linux live recovery cd. Those dont use the hard drive at all to operate. Of course you'll download and burn that using another computer.

NT

[Adrian C]

On XP iTunes normally shoves the library in the 'My Documents' folder under the subfolder 'My Music\iTunes etc...'

Perhaps previously you might have redirected the 'My Documents' folder somewhere else, say another partition.

[stuart noble]

Isn't there an iTunes Library Importer add-on somewhere? Sounds like the playlists aren't files as such, so a recovery utility presumably isn't going to find them.

[Adrian C]

Nothing's hidden :-)

The playlists and the whole database are small collection of files - the main one is 'iTunes Music Library.xml'.

'How to re-create your iTunes library and playlists'

can follow the above, but I just drag the above file from its found folder into the open iTunes application on the 'Library' folder set and then iTunes kicks off building new data files from that.

[Cash]

Chris,

I've had some great successes over a few years and with a number of different formats using the little undelete application below:

Recuva - File Recovery

below is from their site] Recuva (pronounced "recover") is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses.

Cash

[John Whitworth]

saved the day for me, and is completely free.