my friend deleted my whole computer

[trilife]

I was trying to install iTunes and my computer kept telling me it didn't have enough space. So my friend kept deleting files to make space, but then everything on my desktop disappeared including my background, and everytime I try to save soething (Chrome still kind of works) it tells me the "file does not exist or has been deleted". How to I get my files back?

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

trilife

Hello;

Allow me to welcome you to the HP forums!

What's the saying -- "Friends don't let "friends" mess around with their PCs!"

You've got several problems here (other than your "friend" -- who clearly does NOT know what they are doing):

1) Restoring the PC to working condition

2) Restoring any applications you installed

3) Restoring any personal files

Let's talk about the last first, as that is likely the most important thing at the moment.

If all your "friend" was delete some system files, then your personal files are probably still intact.  So, the primary thing to do right now is purchase a large USB stick (64GB or larger), plug that into a USB port on your PC and save off all the personal files and folders you want to retain.  This is IMPORTANT because recover routines can erase all the files in the drive!

Let's now talk about restoration of your PC.  

If it is running the same OS version that came preinstalled, and your "friend" didn't corrupt the Recovery partition while they were fumbling around inside your PC, if you press F11 while rebooting, you will see the HP Recovery Manager, and when you run that, you should be able to restore your PC to working condition.  

It might however have either of the following to side-effects:

1) Removing all the applications you installed.  NO way around this, if it happens.  You will have to reinstall them.

2) Removing all your personal files and folders -- that's why you need the USB backup you did in order to restore these.

Let me know how it goes.

[trilife]

This worked beautifully!! Thank you very much!!