So i reformatted the wrong drive earlier i would like to see if i can recover any of my data as a large amount of it is not replaceable. Does anyone know of any good freeware software that is worth a try? so far very little has been written to the drive
It depends did you do a full format or a 'quick' format, if the first its all gone, nothing can get it back, if the second however you might be in luck. I found a free file recovery program that i used when i did basically the same thing, unfortunatly i can't remember what it was called at the mo, but ill find out and post it for you. EDIT: I'm prett sure this is the one i used; http://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/ Hopefully it will work for you.
no akava.. man this poor guy gonna lose all his data =\ try to recover your disk six- it's not been overwritten on your 'full' format.. all that does is check for errors after overwritting the directory- the data will still be there.. you have to low level a disk before it overwrites the data in all sectors
If it was a full format it will wipe everything, if it was a quick format all it did was make the drive space writeable. As long as the OP has not written too much or any data then he should be able to recover it. Have a look at Hiren's Boot CD
yeah he was in another thread talking about this.. guess he lost the main drive and formatted his data drive on accident.. I just don't want him to lose his stuff without trying.. he's not using any low level format software- from what I gathered he used the gui in windows to format
thanks for the ups guys, i am certainly planning on giving my best options a try until there is no more point in trying. Ill give Hirens a try, thanks Sniper And hippoz thanks for all the help mate its nice when someone puts in the time to help out. I really appreciate it
A disk can be formatted in three different ways: Quick, Standard and Low-Level (physical) format. Quick Format enables you to format a disk quickly by simply initializing the directory entry information in the root directory area and the FAT information. The data area during this proves to be still intact. On the other hand, Standard Format examines the data area, and maps the bad sectors. Since each sector head must be read to determine whether it is bad, the process takes a long time. If a bad sector is detected, clusters containing that sector are marked in the FAT to prevent them from future application. However, just like quick format, full format does not overwrite the data area, and the data content is preserved. Finally, Low-Level Format modifies the surface molecule arrangement, initializes the entire disk, and records sector identifiers to each track (creating addresses to identify sectors within each track). All of the data contained in the disk are initialized, preventing any future recovery attempts. If file system information such as directory entries or FAT is lost, the file cannot be opened by the Windows Operating System. However, the Data Recovery Wizard is capable to directly read data from the data area to recover files after a quick or a standard format. For the Hard Disk, a quick or standard format is generally carried out as a high-level format, where data areas are not overwritten. Therefore, even though the FAT or the root directory is initialized, the Data Recovery Wizard can still recover the data remaining in the data area.
reformat recovery is possible Actually, if the hdd is not physical damaged and the contents on the hard drive are not overwritten by new, you can recover your lost data. Low-level formatting may cause the damage of your hard drive and it can not be recovered. Following is a solution to recover formatted data: http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-formatted-partition.htm You may have a try!
I've used testdisk on drives that have lost their file table (which is essentially the same as a quick format) works fine and is free.
