I think the shop kept my hard drive

aliEnRIK

JJ_Egan wrote: »

B I have a drive that had windows 7 on it last week erased partitions and full format . Partitioned again installed windows and programs .

I dont think you can full format windows 7 can you? (With the disc)
Its always a quick one

JJ_Egan

Dont know but the non window partitions where formatted within windows using Full not Quick . Low Level format utility you get from the HD manufacturer with dire warnings . There's no way for the PC to do an LLF on a modern IDE/ATA or SCSI hard disk, and there's no reason to try to do so. Just starting a test , 50GB D drive has almost 500 MB of data on it . Its a drive that was formatted last week and the data put on it . So i have just given it a Full Format from windows . Now running a recovery tool on the drive to see what comes up will post results . jje

JJ_Egan

Test does a Full Format delete all the data on the drive . Results big definite No it does not . Recovered using Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro . Recovered 41 GB Data on drive last week about 40 odd GB varying files what i call my work folder . . Saturday its given a full format and the drive has partitions deleted and a full drive test is run .So that data has gone all 40+ GB of it . Sunday drive is partitioned and formatted . So that should be an empty drive if a full format actually deletes all the data . Copy across data volume as posted 500mb on Monday . Test Delete this data and under Windows full format the drive . OK so since drive was full last week its been Fully Formatted once Quick Formatted once and today Fully Formatted. So where has the extra data come from . Simples its the data that was on the drive last week before all the formats . Their is even older data that has been recovered . A Full Format does not repeat not erase data ,sure you lose a bit where the File table may overwrite a small part of old data . And from a technical point a tool that writes ones and zeros to the drive still leaves traces enabling forensic tools to build a picture of the data that was on the drive but its normally the forces of law that get involved at that level . jje

aliEnRIK

Just so were clear. Youve found 40Gb of usable data (a full .jpg file as an example), or its found 40Gb of nothing?

If your claiming it did find actual files then im going to test this myself

closed

full format checks the disk for errors, but like quick format doesn't wipe the underlying data, dban or format followed by eraser/ccleaner wipe free space will but any bad clusters may still have data in.

JJ_Egan

Full format does not wipe any data is what i said so i tested to prove the point a test i have carried out many times before . Drive partition D 500 MB of data on it fully formatted a few hours ago . this drive had also been fully formatted on Sunday when it held 40=GB of varying data . Ok so in the space of a week its been fully formatted twice . Just to be clear Sunday held 40GB + of data then formatted then 500MB of data copied to the drive then today for the test this drive that held 500mb is fully formatted again . Empty drive is then scanned with a professional recovery tool namely Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro . Result is 40 odd GB of data is recovered .Not all of the older the data is usable as some of it shows for example PDF file correct size and name but corrupt when trying to open .the 500MB folder is valid for 99% of the files . All data is named and of the correct size and even if corrupt details can be viewed in a hex editor .Bit simplistic to say all files can be recovered as some will have parts overwritten also depends upon the tools you use . jje

closed

that paragraph could do with a quick format

aliEnRIK

JJ - is 'any' of the recovered data actually usable? (for example a .jpg file)

JJ_Egan

that paragraph could do with a quick format Will it delete all the data ~~~~~~~ jje http://forum.easeus.com/index.php Useful forum regards data recovery

Barneysmom

aliEnRIK wrote: »

Just so were clear. Youve found 40Gb of usable data (a full .jpg file as an example), or its found 40Gb of nothing?

If your claiming it did find actual files then im going to test this myself

Yes, I'm so chuffed - I got all my South Africa pictures back and loads of others

It never recovered all of them but probably at least 90%