undelete from root?

By accident (obviously), from a command prompt (DOS Window), while in
the root drive, a delete *.* command was issued (i.e., "C:\>delete
*.*").

Fortunately XP was smart enough to not delete any folders. However
all files in the root have been deleted.

I've tried no fewer than 6 various undelete applications with no
success. They all have problems identfying deleted files in the root
directory. One of them, nice enough to offer tech support for a demo
version, noted that it doesn't have anything to attach files in the
root to, so it doesn't identify them.

I tried running the old MS DOS undelete command, but I got some kind
of "Delete Sentry control file not found". Documentation said to use
a /dos switch on it, but that didn't work either. I do remember how
well that undelete command worked back in the DOS/Windows days.

Does anyone know of any ways to undelete files from the root
directory? Any tips/help much appreciated. Thanks,

Joe

Joe Magiera wrote:

 > By accident (obviously), from a command prompt (DOS Window), while in
 > the root drive, a delete *.* command was issued (i.e., "C:\>delete
 > *.*").
 >
 > Fortunately XP was smart enough to not delete any folders. However
 > all files in the root have been deleted.

Has nothing to do with smartness--no Microsoft delete command has ever
defaulted to deleting folders. At one time there was a different command
for that, later there was a switch for the delete command.

 > I've tried no fewer than 6 various undelete applications with no
 > success. They all have problems identfying deleted files in the root
 > directory. One of them, nice enough to offer tech support for a demo
 > version, noted that it doesn't have anything to attach files in the
 > root to, so it doesn't identify them.
 >
 > I tried running the old MS DOS undelete command, but I got some kind
 > of "Delete Sentry control file not found". Documentation said to use
 > a /dos switch on it, but that didn't work either. I do remember how
 > well that undelete command worked back in the DOS/Windows days.

That's because MS-DOS undelete depended on a particular feature of a
particular version of DOS. XP uses a different undelete mechanism that is
not very robust.

 > Does anyone know of any ways to undelete files from the root
 > directory? Any tips/help much appreciated. Thanks,

Just do a repair installation. In the future set regular restore points and
don't let "someone" have write-access in the root directory.

 > Joe

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