Free Data Recovery

[gen3ric]

I took apart my pc last week to clean it and install some new fans. Yesterday I finally got around to putting everything back in the case and turning my computer back on, but when I went into Itunes to play some songs I noticed a lot of music missing (5gigs). I can't find the missing music anywhere, it's not on either of my hard drives and I have no idea how this could have happened as I did not install any new hardware besides the fans. I know during the last show they went over some programs that were good for photo recovery, but they stuck mostly to photo recovery and mostly programs for the mac platform. I need a good FREE program for data recovery, because I could just redownload the music for free after all. I've heard PCI Filerecovery and Restore are pretty good programs, I've even heard that using Knoppix might be a good idea, does anyone know if any of these will work or have any additional suggestions? I really don't feel like trying to relocate the torrents for 5gigs of music. Thanks!

[tehboris]

I'd be more concerned about using the drive if files 'disappeared' honestly. The drive might have decided to put a hole in the MFT.

You should backup what is left.

[fishtoprecords]

any additional suggestions?

Practice safe computing. Make backups. Don't trust your hard disk to keep files.

If its more complicated than an undelete, tools to really recover files are a last chance for stuff that is priceless, like photos of your great grandmother who died after you took the photos.

Music doesn't count. Even if its a PITA to get the music back, just do it.

Make backups of anything you can't afford to lose.