how do i or can i recover pics from my hard drive after a system restore

[BKUSTOM4LIFE]

my notebook crashed a few months ago and i had to do a system restore, i lost half of the pictures. is there any way to recover them from the hard drive? help if you can. im not computer savy.....lol....

[WAWood]

@BKUSTOM4LIFE

Sorry, but I don't have very good news for you ...

You said you did a "system restore" -- and some of those start out by erasing the ENTIRE hard drive, effectively, deleting everything from it.

Since erasing does not actually remove the files from the drive, had you asked immediately, you might have been able to run data recovery apps and get most of your files back -- but months later, they have probably all been overwritten by other, newer files.

As you continue to use the drive, you're overwriting the files and folders that got erased. The more you use it, the less likely you'll be able to recover anything on it

Your best bet for recovering data now is to do the following:
1) Remove the hard drive from the old PC
2) Purchase a USB-to-Hard Driver adapter kit (like the one illustrated below)

 

3) Connect the old drive to a working PC using that adapter
4) Try to retrieve the files and folders you want to save from the old drive and copy them to the new PC.

If this does not work, then you need to do the following:
1) Download and install this utility on a working PC http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/recover_data_in_3_steps_with_minitool_power_data_recovery_free_...
2) Run the data recovery utility to see what can be retrieved from the old drive.

If that tool does not find what you need, an alternative is Recuva http://www.piriform.com/recuva

And, if that does not work well, the best tool out there is this one, but only the trial version is free http://www.file-recovery.com/