Posted: 4/24/2010 7:13 PM
Post subject: Recovering Formatted Files
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Guernsey
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 254
Can anyone here help me find a program that can help find formated files? I accidentally formatted my two external harddrives and I managed to repartition them however I lost all my files and I want them back. Can anyone help?
Guernsey Adams Pierre
Posted: 4/24/2010 7:19 PM
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Dacicus
Editor, Player (67)
Joined: 6/22/2005
Posts: 1041
I'm not sure if this is applicable to whatever software you used, but did you do a "quick" format or a "full" format? As I understand it, recovery of the latter may not be possible.
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Posted: 4/24/2010 8:02 PM
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samurai_goroh
Editor, Player (53)
Joined: 12/25/2004
Posts: 634
Location: Aguascalientes, Mexico
I've never used this program, but I've used others from the same company (Piriform), so I believe it might help: Recuva
Accidentally deleted an important file? Lost something important when your computer crashed? No problem! Recuva recovers files deleted from your Windows computer, Recycle Bin, digital camera card, or MP3 player. And it's free! Recovery from damaged or formatted disks Even if you've formatted a drive so that it looks blank, Recuva can still find your files on it.
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Posted: 4/24/2010 11:06 PM
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Guernsey
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 254
Dacicus wrote:
I'm not sure if this is applicable to whatever software you used, but did you do a "quick" format or a "full" format? As I understand it, recovery of the latter may not be possible.
It was a full format I believe but it was long ago.
Guernsey Adams Pierre
Posted: 4/24/2010 11:44 PM
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Warepire
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Location: A little to the left of nowhere (Sweden)
If I do remember correctly from my hardware tech courses a full format writes 0s to all the blocks on the drive... Some very deep scanning will be required to find those files if they still can be found.
Posted: 4/25/2010 2:02 AM
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Patashu
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Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4017
Typically deleting a file just removes the pointer in the directory to the block(s) where the data is stored, and marks those blocks as being free for writing, which is why it's so fast - the data is still there, just overwritable. This means that deleted data can sometimes be salvaged. If the file is overwritten, which I'm pretty sure a full format does, then there's not much you can do to get it back.
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Posted: 4/25/2010 4:45 AM
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Warp
Banned User, Former player
Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland
Dacicus wrote:
I'm not sure if this is applicable to whatever software you used, but did you do a "quick" format or a "full" format? As I understand it, recovery of the latter may not be possible.
Actually it is possible in most cases, but it will cost you a s**tload of money. There are companies specialized in data recovery of erased (and broken) hard drives, but they are not cheap (it requires dedicated technology, it cannot be done by the hard drive itself). Of course that's usually out of question for most individuals, so unfortunately there's little one can do about it. After a full format the data is as good as gone.
Posted: 4/28/2010 12:50 AM
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Guernsey
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 254
So what advice you have for me?
Guernsey Adams Pierre
Posted: 4/28/2010 11:01 AM
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Sir_VG
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Joined: 10/9/2004
Posts: 1911
Location: Floating Tower
The one thing I would try as a last resort would be a program called Stellar Phoenix. While you have to pay to recover, it will do scans for free. If that can't find it (which I've found it to be the most robust that doesn't require the dedicated tools), then you're probably out of luck for your cheap options.
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Posted: 4/28/2010 3:35 PM
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Guernsey
Joined: 8/3/2008
Posts: 254
Well, it may cost me but I will keep that in mind.
Guernsey Adams Pierre