Recover data from formatted HDD
- Thread starter Redmelo
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It is possible since a format only makes windows see the drive as empty and not actually deleted them properly as far as I know. Not sure if you would be able to do it yourself or have to send it to a recovery company, they ain't cheap though so depends how important the files are.
It's not free but Active Undelete does exactly that job. Considering the hassle it's saved me the $20 or so for it (exactly £15 at current rates) well worth it for a very capable piece of software (saved my ass 3 times now. 1 a parition failure on a raid 0 drive, 1 random drive death and most recently human error raiding 2 drives I hadnt properly got all the data off).
A format just changes the header of each file to indicate the space it lives in can be reused (which is why formatting a drive isn't enough to wipe the data on it). The right low level software finds it VERY easy to pick this apart.
A format just changes the header of each file to indicate the space it lives in can be reused (which is why formatting a drive isn't enough to wipe the data on it). The right low level software finds it VERY easy to pick this apart.
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I have been trying various software to recover the files, including Active Undelete, but every one of them seems to fail at some point.
They don't crash completely but simply stop all progress while the time elapsed still continues to increase on the counter (but the time remaining does not decrease anymore). I am then forced to kill the process and reboot because the system freezes every several seconds.
I checked the HDD using check disk which completed without any errors and I've never had any problems with this HDD.
It feels like I'm running out of options now, what can I do?
They don't crash completely but simply stop all progress while the time elapsed still continues to increase on the counter (but the time remaining does not decrease anymore). I am then forced to kill the process and reboot because the system freezes every several seconds.
I checked the HDD using check disk which completed without any errors and I've never had any problems with this HDD.
It feels like I'm running out of options now, what can I do?
