I think the shop kept my hard drive

JJ_Egan

The point i was making was a full format does not destroy the data on a modern hard drive . That is case proven however the nub is the actual recovery back to usable files some tools may work better than others plus their are other factors at work so its a question of fingers crossed or pay a lump of money for professional recovery The pro job can rebuild the data much better than a home user . If my drive had pictures or web sites on that would get me locked up or bank details etc they are recoverable after a format reasonably easy with the correct tools take a hammer to the drive and technically it can be rebuilt enough to produce an image for forensic data recovery . writing 0 and 1 to the drive data is not so easily recoverable but due to the nature of a hard disc the actual 0 and 1 do not erase completely and enough fragments are left for an image to be built for prosecution . All this has been well covered in numerous in depth articles in UK computer magazines over the last few years . jje format on this page gone to pot

aliEnRIK

Erm

Ill reask JJ

have ANY of the files youve recovered actually been recovered and work as they should?

aliEnRIK

closed wrote: »

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.

I admit im partially wrong.
Having delved into this (And read so many differing answers)
It seems XP FULL FORMAT doesnt overwrite (Which I thought it did). It will remove the 1st 20Mb or so of data and the rest is recoverable. The time is taken scanning the hard drive for errors.

however
Vista and Windows 7 both WRITE 'zeros' to the hardrive, making data unrecoverable

sharkie

aliEnRIK wrote: »

..... It seems XP FULL FORMAT doesnt overwrite (Which I thought it did).....

About a year ago we bought another big san, and the techie disk guy came in (not the salesman), and told us that the quick format just writes the ntfs/fat headers, and the Format only reads/scans the surface of the disk to check for errors. The format option does not write.

if the format option was to write, he told us it would take much longer, too long in fact to make it worthwhile and there would be no benefit. He advised to only do a quick format, but again it is a raid 5 and 1+0 raid array so if any errors do occur then it is delt with automatically.

I only now do quick formats. If I am unsure I write a big block to the disk check it.

JJ_Egan

however
Vista and Windows 7 both WRITE 'zeros' to the hardrive, making data unrecoverable.

If that was the case how come my older data is still showing even if some of it is corrupt full format windows 7

Two full format takes nowhere near as long as a utility that actually writes zeroes to the drive .

But the key point has to be if you have lost data dont give up initially it may be recoverable and the less that has been written to the drive since the better the chance .

jje

aliEnRIK

Ive no clue how youve gone about whatever it is your going on about. Im not convinced youve run full formats

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941961/en-us
http://www.data-recovery-forum.disklabs.com/showthread.php?9031-Full-format-zero-s-drive-in-Vista-Windows-7

JJ_Egan

Ok my previous knowledge of full format under windows not destroying data no longer holds true for Windows 7 .
Correct full format does not destoy data but now under win 7 it does .

Test i carried out as i said was a full format but just in case i am doing it again possible i did something wrong .

jje
Full format requires you to untick the quick format box and takes a lot longer than a quick format .