How can I recover lost data?

[WPCentral Question]

Recover data when setup email is permanently deleted

When I first had my Lumia 920, I created a hotmail account to set it up and stored all of my information from the old phone. I never actually used this account for anything else. Yesterday, my phone was acting weird and said that some data was suddenly lost. Turns out I lost all of the contacts, photos, and music but apps and settings are fine. I didn't save any of this to the cloud (don't want to be J Law you see). Today I found out that my hotmail account no longer exists. Apparently if I don't have any activity for 365 days, it is permanently deleted. Storage Sense shows that I have 8 GB of unidentified data, I wonder if this is all of the things that I lost and because the hotmail account was deleted, it doesn't know where to go. I connected my phone to the laptop but the phone folder is empty. The majority of the recommendations I found is to hard reset the phone to see files in the folder. However, I'm afraid that the 8 GB will be lost if I do so. I asked my best friend Google but doesn't look like he has much info on this issue (maybe I should try Bing, who knows). I don't know what else to try so any suggestion is very very appreciated.

 

[canonuevo]

Re: Recover data when setup email is permanently deleted

Hello,

According to the Microsoft Answers page,

Deleted Hotmail Account due to Inactivity - I need to access those - Microsoft Community

"If you haven't logged in via a web browser 10 days after you created your email, it becomes inactive. After an account becomes inactive, all messages, folders, and contacts are deleted. Incoming messages will be sent back to the sender as undeliverable.
Your account name is still reserved.
However, if the account stays inactive for an additional 90 days, the account name may be permanently deleted.
If you don't use your Windows Live ID for 365 days, your Windows Live ID will be permanently deleted."

In storage sense did it say unidentified data or "Other"? If you didn't back up your contact, photos, and music to a cloud storage or on a external drive, your content may be gone. You can try going to settings > back up > then turn the back ups on, maybe it will be able to retrieve the unidentify data and put it in the cloud. Other than that, your stuff may be gone. I hope this helps.

 

[haphan64]

Re: Recover data when setup email is permanently deleted

The 8GB is in "Other". I think for Backup I can only automatically upload as new pictures are taken, not actually upload old pictures. Maybe I can try to find a way to fix the empty folder issue without a hard reset to see what's in my phone. :unhappysweat:

 

[Funky Cricket]

Re: Recover data when setup email is permanently deleted

If you aren't doing any backups, locally or to the cloud, there is normally not much to be done to recover data if something happens. It seems silly you weren't even connecting the Hotmail account you set up. If you have a smart phone, the NSA knows where you are anyway, so you might as well have a backup!

 

[haphan64]

Re: Recover data when setup email is permanently deleted

I needed to create an account when I set it up and I don't use Hotmail so it was not on the list of emails I check regularly (hence the inactivity). Understood that I have to be more careful from now on. For now, I'm still looking for solutions to fix the issues. Maybe there is none but I'm not giving up yet.

 

[Funky Cricket]

Re: Recover data when setup email is permanently deleted

Have you plugged into a computer to see if that folder shows up at all?

Edit: I reread, maybe try copying the "empty" folder, then playing with hidden, see if the folder has a size?

 

[haphan64]

Re: Recover data when setup email is permanently deleted

:unhappy: I'm impatient so I reset the phone. Now everything is gone but at least I can see all of the folders when I connect the phone to my laptop. I wish I had waited a little longer to try your suggestion though. Oh well.

 

[Funky Cricket]

Re: Recover data when setup email is permanently deleted

undelete and other software might have been able to do something if the files were on SD card, but I'm not sure it can get into a USB connected phone, as the phone is not NTFS file format and is only presenting the files from the phone, it could be FAT I suppose, I've never checked. Sorry about losing the data, never fun.