Data Recovery

lxbsly

lxbsly

lxbsly

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Joined
3 Aug 2011
Posts
12
Here is the situation, i have 2 hard drives.
1. Windows 7 installed (my main hard drive)
2. Just a hard drive with hundreds of films

I noticed Microsoft had released an official pre beta version of windows 8 so i decided to download it. I went to install but noticed no menu came up allowing you to select a partition to install it on. As i didnt want to lose my data on my Windows 7 Hard drive i canceled install and went on the internet for answers on dual booting it. I found that the way around this problem was to install it via a disk or usb. I found this tutorial to do it by usb.

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-install-windows-7vista-from-usb-drive-detailed-100-working-guide/

(please read it)

I was stupid and followed that tutorial, it stats type disk 1 which is correct however because i have 2 hard drives, my first drive was disk0 0, second was disk 1 and then the usb was disk 2. So mistakenly i formatted my films hard drive. I clicked on pretty early and as quickly as possible attempted to cancel the format. It was 4% formatted and it wouldnt cancel so i turned off my PC.


If anyone could help me please retrieve my files any way possible you would make me a very very happy person. I am expecting the worst as getting the files from a format is essentially defeating the object of a format. But if there is any way possible please help me.
 
Try Recuva, and use a deep scan. (google it and click on the filehippo site).

Im sure better solutions are probably out there, but i don't know if they are free/easy to find.

edit: it will only really work if you used a quick format. Also, dont use the drive while scanning and do not recover the files to the same HDD.
 
Thanks for the quick reply. I have actually tried recuva and it didn't work for me as i think it doesnt work for formatted drives. May i also note, if you look at that link you can tell if it was a quick format or a full one. And on top fo that, it only formatted 4% and then i cancelled it so is it possible i can retrieve 96% of my data?
 
Yeah i noticed it, ive used diskpart for a bootable stick like that before but couldnt tell if it was a full format or not. A quick format only takes a few seconds, a full format around 30 mins (depending on drive size). So id guess a full format. Regardless a lot of it should still be there. I know ive already mentioned it but did you try a deep scan with recuva?

I think theres a program called recoverit which is good, and uses a much more meticulous search algorithm
 
I will be sure to try recuva it again and try your other suggestion. Thankyou.

Anyone else, if you have any more ideas please say them.
 
Have used the free version of ZAR (zero assumption recovery) to pull photos from a card when everything else failed. They have a demo of the full version on their site
 
Testdisk, (if it works), will simply recover the whole partition table and all files will be 100% in tact. It doesn't take long at all to run either
 
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