I cannot understand why technology hates me, when I love it so.

So I accidently deleted some videos. Re-downloading them would take a long time and be a PITA. So I dl'ed this thing called WinUndelete, that promised to restore them. It found them, but would not restore them, because... well, I don't know why, exactly. But I do know now that I wasn't supposed to put the program on the same "logical disk" as the files I was trying to restore. So I deleted the program, and put the exe file that creates the program on a CD-RW, and tried to then install the program on another CD-RW, and it won't do it.

Now I have what apparently are partially restored files on my freaking D drive, and a useless application. This is taking a long time and is a PITA, which is what I was trying to avoid.

Does anyone have any clue what I may done wrong here?

When you installed the WinUndelete program to the same logical drive as the files you wanted to restore, parts of those files were probably overwritten by the files for the program. When Windows deletes a file, it doesn't actually erase it, but just marks the references to it in the file index as deleted, meaning that it can write new stuff over those spaces on the drive. However, the actual data is still intact. When you install new files, Windows will likely write them to the areas on the disk you just had the system declare deleted, which then destroys the previous data. That's probably why WinUndelete didn't work. You installed it on top of the data you were trying to save.

Okay, DX, I get that. It looks like I may have frelled one of them, but at least one is still intact. What I don't get is, if I can't install this program onto my C drive, and it won't let me download it to a CD, where am I supposed to install it? The D drive is supposed to be reserved, right?

I should just give it up and download the damn videos again. It won't take any longer than figuring this out.

What I don't get is, if I can't install this program onto my C drive, and it won't let me download it to a CD, where am I supposed to install it? The D drive is supposed to be reserved, right?

It totally depends on your system. Your D drive might have Windows restore stuff, but if there's room on it, I don't see why you can't install it on that. (Or is your D drive a CD/DVD drive?)

Failing that, you'd need to add another drive to your system or get an external drive. A cheap USB flash drive might even work.

You could also re-partition your C drive to add another partition, but once you're trying to recover something, this option will also risk wiping out what you want to recover.

Okay, yeah, the D drive is a partition of the hard disk. I could install it on that. When I tried to open the D drive before, the system wouldn't let me - flashed all sorts of warnings and I thought I'd kill my computer.

Perhaps I should back everything up before I start messing around. Considering I don't know what the frell I'm doing.

I'm scared by Windows Vista. How long before they're going to take my XP away?

Dude, if it comes to that and the security chip thing, I'm switching to linux and not looking back.

Didn't MS only recently abandon support of NT 4.0?

Didn't MS only recently abandon support of NT 4.0?

I'm not as concerned with abandoning of support, but more of what OS I can put on my next computer. And the rate at which applications might move away.

I was happy once I got started on W2K. Happy enough that knowing my next machine would have XP bothered me. But I made peace with that, although I still long for the days of yore.

Vista brings back my XP apprehension, times a brazilian.

Well, just that short listing of the Vista line has increased the likelihood that my next computer will be a Mac.