So I spent…
…lots of time to find my data.
Last week I decided that my private laptop needs a clean-up – a very thorough one. I backed up my data; basically I copied a few directories to my external HD, amongst them “Application Data”. Then I reinstalled Windows. Of course, I wanted to get my data back but what a scare as I could not find the “Application Data” directory on my external HD anymore. So I installed some recovery software to look for the data on the main drive. This takes a while and so one week was lost trying to recover my data.
Ok, I don’t know why I haven’t done the following earlier: this morning I had the great idea of starting a search over my entire external HD for “App*”. Of course, there it was… The settings in the Folder View of the reinstalled Windows Explorer hide systems folders and apparently “Application Data” is a systems folder… How stupid of me not to think of this earlier – how stupid of MS to be so rigid.
Anyway, I am glad to have my data back as I feared the worst, namely that I lost a few years worth of email. Now I can also continue to install some of the essential programs again and put up the pictures from my trip to Canterbury soon. Though, this will still have to wait for one week as I have to get some work done. Great weekend in the office – here I come.
