It is a common problem for users to reload NTFS, sometimes after a crash, and in the process apparently delete all existing files. Fortunately, CnW Recovery can rescue this situation.

Many PCs bought in the high street, or from big name vendors have a recovery mode, often this is where the operating system is stored in a hidden partition on the disk, but can be used to reinstall itself in the event of a major crash or corruption. The unfortunate side effect is that often it does delete all existing user files on the disk. However, as long as the hard drive has not had a complete reformat, the old files will normally still exist. Typically, the newly loaded operating system will occupy much the same space as the original one, and so again will not actually overwrite the space where the user files were located.

CnW Recovery has developed tools that will search the hard drive for previously used directory stubs, and so recover the original files. The success rate can never be guaranteed, but so long as nothing is loaded after re-installing the operating system, it should be possible to recover more than 90% of the original files. The longer the interval between re-installing NTFS and starting the recovery process, the more files are likely to be overwritten and lost.