A way to shut down without saving

Greta

Flashaholic
Joined
Apr 8, 2002
Messages
15,999
Location
Arizona
Ok guys... I need your expertise. I need to reboot my computer without saving the changes I've made during this "session". I replaced a file with a "new" one and now see that I need the "old" one back. Since doing the overwrite, I have not rebooted... hoping someone can help me here.

I cannot do a system restore to a previous checkpoint because I do need some of the stuff that I've done since that time... (yesterday around noonish). And the new checkpoint won't be established for another hour or two. As you can see, time is a bit of the essence here.

How do I "undo" the overwrite of this one particular file? Can I reboot without saving?

:help:
 

raggie33

*the raggedier*
Joined
Aug 11, 2003
Messages
13,453
imnot sure a ya question but perhaps turn off system restore for now.
 

x-ray

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 1, 2002
Messages
1,941
Location
London
I dont think it can be done in win xp (well not without some expensive data recovery software)

What about simply saving the new stuff that you need to keep to removable media and letting system restore do it's thing ?
 

x-ray

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 1, 2002
Messages
1,941
Location
London
Link to a free file recovery program that's had some good reviews, not sure how it performs with overwritten files as opposed to simply deleted ones but may be worth a try.

Good Luck :)
 

balazer

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 22, 2005
Messages
486
System Restore does not monitor any user/personal data files. When you overwrite a file with a new version, the old version is gone. There is no way to recover it. That's why back-ups are important.
 

winny

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Apr 14, 2005
Messages
1,067
Location
Gothenburg, Sweden
If it's _really_ important, you should disconnect the power cable immediately and use some data restore program on your disk (preferably on another computer or at least not boot from your current disk as it might destroy more data). Files that are deleted are not in fact deleted, but just marked for future overwrite.
If you have overwritten an old file, the situation may be different.

Again, if it's _REALLY_ important, you should send the disk to a data restore company and they will probably recover it for you. It can bee _very_ expensive though.

Good luck!
/Andreas
 

Greta

Flashaholic
Joined
Apr 8, 2002
Messages
15,999
Location
Arizona
balazer... that's what I thought... :ironic:

The file is the Inbox for my Outlook Express. The last "checkpoint" for my restore was yesterday around noonish. Last night when I got home from being gone for 10 days, my Inbox was very full with mostly crap but a few things that I did save in order to "deal with" today. Since then, I have rebooted my computer several times and done some stuff.

Then just a little bit ago, I transferred the Inbox file from my laptop to my desktop so I could also have the emails that I received while I was away. When I hit the button to "replace", for some reason I thought that it would overwrite only duplicate stuff and simply add the "new" stuff. But it didn't. It completely overwrote the entire file and deleted the stuff I had saved from last night. Am I making any sense? :thinking: Anyway... now I've lost all of the emails that I recieved last night and saved in order to "deal with" today. Some of them I really do need back... :sigh:
 

balazer

Enlightened
Joined
Aug 22, 2005
Messages
486
Where does your Outlook retrieve the mail from? If it's Gmail, for example, depending on how you have your Gmail account set up, it would archive the messages for you.
 

x-ray

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 1, 2002
Messages
1,941
Location
London
Depending on your ISP settings you may be able to re-download the deleted emails, depends how your outlook/ISP mail server sync. is set up.

For example when I download emails from my ISP via outlook they are automatically deleted from my ISP based account, however this deletion only puts them in a "trash" file that can still be accessed for a few days by logging directly into my ISP email account.

Hope that makes sense.


*** Edit ***

Basically what balazer just said above (in fewer words and without rambling) :laughing:
 
Last edited:

Greta

Flashaholic
Joined
Apr 8, 2002
Messages
15,999
Location
Arizona
Balazer... it wasn't my gmail account that I needed the emails from... unfortunately... :shakehead:

x-ray... I just checked my other two email accounts from the webmail site... the server... and nothing. Since when did these people become so freakin' efficient?!?!? :banghead:
 

shaman

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Jun 12, 2005
Messages
160
Location
Under God.
Hi Sasha,

I agree with balazer and x-ray.

I would definitely try your ISP first and verify what your ISP email account settings are and the settings on outlook express. If your ISP is not too big, you may try and see if they would be willing to restore your email's from one of their backups. Granted if it is gmail or the like this might not be an option.

Also since you are using outlook express there isn't an archiving function built in (like there is in standard outlook) to ease events such as this. Due to the actual copy & replace (from laptop to desktop) the file is overwritten and thus only a file-by-file backup of the laptop/desktop would suffice. IIRC system restore only pertains to those files which directly affect how the operating system functions.

A couple of stabs in the dark...

Did you use the same medium(3.5/usb drive/memory card) to transfer the file from laptop to desktop or did you use another (for rotation)?

Did you happen to make any rogue copies for 'quick backups'?

I don't know if the DBX file has metadata like other office documents but that is about the last ditch effort...

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Shaman
 

Endeavour

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Mar 22, 2004
Messages
1,673
Location
Texas, USA
If you haven't closed the program or done anything in it since you replaced all the messages, you might be able to do ctrl+z to undo the import - I'm not sure how big of a backlog of information express holds, but with most programs, if you mess up somehow, that usually will get you back to where you want to be, but not always.

In the case of Express, if it's like Outlook, ctrl+z will only undo your most recent action, so if you've added/deleted items since then, you might be out of luck with that 'trick'.

Good luck!
 

turbodog

Flashaholic
Joined
Jun 23, 2003
Messages
6,425
Location
central time
I have done similar stuff before.

get on the web (with another pc)
find undelete by executive software international
this will run from a floppy and it runs only in RAM so as to not alter your hdd

run it

it should easily find the overwritten file

i have an old version for nt/2000. it might work with xp

I can email it to you. if youu want this, pm/email me.
 

Empath

Flashaholic
Joined
Nov 11, 2001
Messages
8,508
Location
Oregon
If you copied file to file, on the OS level, it can't be recovered except through a system restore or Go-Back type of program. If copied on the OS level, you literally wrote over the top of your previous file.

If system restore saves your inbox file, then it can be restored. If the last save point was yesterday at noon, you could do a system restore to see if it returns your old inbox. If it doesn't, you can always undo your restore. I've got a feeling system restore doesn't save it though. Writing over a file is more destructive than a deletion.

If you copied it through a OE function, I couldn't say. I haven't been using OE.
 

Greta

Flashaholic
Joined
Apr 8, 2002
Messages
15,999
Location
Arizona
Thanks for all of the responses guys... :bow: But it looks like I am sunk... :shakehead: It is like Empath said... an overwrite is worse than a deletion.

I figured that if there were a way to reboot my computer without saving the things I've done since I last rebooted, I could recover it that way. You know... like when you type a bunch of stuff in Notepad and close without saving. Believe it or not, I use that function often when I am working on the main index page or any of the software files for the forums. If I mess up a code, I just close Notepad and start over again from the original file.

Oh well... anyone who has sent me emails over the past two weeks... and you want/need an answer... please resend... :shakehead:
 
Top