Tech: Nerd Disaster Averted

Phewf!

What a sweat I had yesterday.  I was supposed to help fix Angel's slow laptop so she dropped it off in the morning.  I assumed that she had backed up everything already because she said she had an external at home.  So I proceeded to re-install her Windows.

1. Insert CD
2. Enter Boot Menu to select CD
3. Quick Format
4. Install!

Easy as 1,2, 3, 4.

I was happy because everything went smoothly.  The key from her Dell sticker worked, no activation problems and most importantly her laptop was quick now! That is.. until she came to pick it up.

A: "Hey it looks different"
C: "yep! I just reformatted it, its quick now!"
A: "oh...cool... you backed up all my stuff right?"
C: "..........uh......"
A: "NO WAY You're Kidding Right!?"
C: "nope, i thought you backed it up"
A: "OMG my life is flashing before my eyes"
C: "OH SHIT" (facepalm)
A: "my pictures! my music! my documents! good thing I didn't start on my essay yet!"

(A runs away distraught and lamenting)

Good thing for technology, I didn't panic.  I had my trusty usb-SATA/IDE adapter kit and an awesome 6mb program that I found earlier: EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Pro 4.3.6

Within a couple hours, we were able to recover most of her pictures, music, and documents even though the drive was quick-formatted and a new OS was installed.  YAY!  I remember hearing that it usually costs hundreds of dollars to recover lost data.  Being able to do it myself was sweeeeet.  I even found files that I deleted earlier in the recycle bin! (Oh the power) Technology is beautiful