is it possible to recover data from a formatted drive.

andy2004

hi, is it possible to recover data from a hard drive formatted with the QUICK format set, without the need to have another drive to put the data onto.

A inplace recovery.

why? I just formatted my 2tb external drive accidently choosen the wrong drive letter, after moving all the data from my bad 1.5tb onto it which was the drive i was going to format.
plus the other data which was already on it, pretty much it was a filled 2tb drive,
I havent got another £108 to go and buy another 2tb which i could then put the data on to.
I need to recover the files onto the same drive.
i need a program which can rebuild the mft or whatever needs to be done for me to be able to see the files in windows explorer.

Wish i had my old system, sure i had a program on there to do it on, but this is a completely new build, and windows 7
undelete or something i think it was called, or maybe it was some partitioning software.
Cant install the program due to the fact it was most likely on the 2tb drive which was formatted.

closed

try http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/free-data-recovery-software.htm

or

http://www.piriform.com/docs/recuva/using-recuva/recovering-files-from-damaged-or-reformatted-disks

S0litaire

yes you CAN recover most (if not all) of the content!

first : STOP USING IT (I know it's an external drive but it's good to make the point of not iusing it till you are fully ready to recover!) lol
second : Easiest option but you gotta pay!! Grab a recovery utility I'd suggest "GetDataBack for NTFS" (the trial version will let you know how much you can recover)
third : bit harder option but it's free : Get a copy of "testDisk" from http://www.cgsecurity.org you can do REAL dammage with this program so be careful and double check all commands before running!! ^_^ and follow the example below:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Data_Recovery_Examples#Recovery_of_reformatted_partition

You might be able to get away with recovering a backed up MFT entry (be default the MFT is recorded a couple of times on the drive! for safety!)

Here's a step-by-step guide
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

spud17

I've already suggested testdisk on your original thread.

andy2004

Thanks closed. after reading http://www.easeus.com/resource/windows-7-Unformat.htm the first 2 options would require another 2tb drive. i'm seeing if the 3rd option, look at the first picture partition recovery would do it, if not then i'll install recuva and hope that will, but i got a feeling i'm going to have to buy another 2tb drive.
looking like it gonna be a alnighter with easeus it did the partition recovery in 45min, but now its looking for files with an estimated time of Calculating... and i'm guessing but i think it will then tell me to click the boxes to select the files i want to recover and then ask me for a destination.
Well the calculating... time just changed a couple of secs ago get ready for it 60hrs and rising, i'll give it till tomorrow dinner time and check back.
also taken a quick look at recuva and that looks like it will be the same issue, requiring another drive to recover the files onto.

small note: i tried getdataback for ntfs a few years ago, it was on a hirens boot cd believe it was version 10.5 of the cd, which contained a lot of erm commerical software, and found that it wasnt that good.

I can think of at least 10 recovery programs but they all require 1 thing. another drive to recover to, and considering it was only 3 weeks ago i bought this 2tb drive at a cost of £109 i dont really want to spend the same amount again recovery this data.

Think i found a piece of software that can do what i want, wont know until i install it and test.

andy2004

Just to keep you updated. been using easeus over night, it finally dropped to 33hrs this morning at 6am, however at 11:50am when i looked again it said 33hrs, so i stopped it, gave me 4 selected of drive, the top one was the best, so i highlighted that and clicked next, where it then told me it would take a further 15hr to build a folder list. which then went up not down in time so i cancelled that, looks like that program would take around 5days and i would probably still need to go out and buy a 2tb drive.
The help file is rather unhelpful at telling what it will do when you get to certain points, should really have a walk through and show you screens and what you will see.

now tring testdisk, following the instructions to the letter on the link provided and i wont be too happy if i end up loosing any of the files i know i could recover if i went out and bought another 2tb drive.
If the partition has been reformatted to another file system (FAT32 formatted as NTFS or vice-versa),

• run TestDisk,
• select the hard disk and the partition type
• choose Advanced
• select the partition
• choose Type,
• enter the value corresponding to the previous filesystem
• choose Boot
• choose RebuildBS
• List
• If you can see your files, choose Write and confirm
• In Analyse, choose to rewrite the partition with the correct partition type.

followed everything down to choose boot. and it says boot sector ok, backup boot sector ok, sectors are identical.
followed by: A valid NTFS Boot sector must be present in order to access any data; even if the partition is not bootable.
So i selected choose rebuildBS and then LIST and got a Can't open filesystem. Filesystem seems damaged. with 1 option to QUIT.
also told me the MFT and MFT mirror are bad.

downloaded GetDataback NTFS and seeing if it will do what it says. 24hrs

S0litaire

if you try testdisk again try the following:
Run analyse
then run a quick search
then run a deeper search

Then see if it can see your partition. then you should be able to recover it.

andy2004

just spent pretty much 2 days running getdataback NTFS Step 3 is what i'm currently on, and as expected its asking me to choose the files i want to recover, as it puts it select and copy the files. so as with the other recovery software it requires another drive.
it seems no one on this planet has written a piece of software which can be used to unformat a drive. even programs with unformat cant as all they do is the same thing every other program does, scan the hdd thats formatted and then ask for a destination drive to recover the file to.

in reply to solitaire. your program is the same, requires another drive to recover the data TO.
but ok,
1 run testdisk,
2 click analyse
3 clicked quick search
4 clicked deeper search, window shows /243201 00% looks like it going to be another all nighter. will check back later.
but it seems my best bet is to go out and buy another 2tb drive, use file scavenger which is better than all the programs mentioned when compared with recovery programs, 1 quick, 2 files seem to be perfect. but as previously stated 3 times, i wanted a program which could RECOVER IN PLACE / but as no one seems to understand what i mean, suppose I should have said that 1 i didn't have a spare drive to recover the files to. and 2. i didnt want to buy another 2tb drive. cause having 8tb in the house seems a little Over the top.

2x2tb, 1tb, 1.5x2tb where 1 of them is being sent back to be replaced the only WD drive i got, hence the 2nd 2tb to put the data on, and now it seems i'm going to have a 3rd 2tb drive.

piece of advice to anyone reading this. DO NOT BUY A WD drive 1.5 or 2tb model, they all currently seem to be a bad purchase, the shop where i bought my new 2tb samsung told me that lately they have been having a lot of people bringing their WD for replacement. I just happen to mention mine whilst i was buying my new computer build.
to put it another way. I bought a 1.5tb Western Digitial it failed after 8months, got replaced, and now the replacement drive needs replacing after 14months.
whereas the samsung drives i bought are working perfectly and i bought the 1tb 1.5tb before i bought the WD 1.5tb. it was user/idiots error < aka ME that formatted the drive not the hdd.

Solitaire will let you know how testdisk is tomorrow as i think it will still be running.

andy2004

minor update, for some reason testdisk is telling me that there was a partition of 32gb on the 2tb drive which is the wrong size, which i know for a fact is wrong as when i bought the drive. i put it in the external enclosure, turned it on and via windows diskmanagement, formatted it directly as a 2tb drive.

Ah well looks like it going to be a long drive 16mile round journey to get another 2tb drive.

andy2004

OK, bought a new 2tb hdd to recover the files onto, plus i also bought a 16gb flash drive aswell for a £10 so i can carry around some useful programs and my c.v.
as the drive is going to be external no need to turn of my computer to connect it.
used disk mangement to format it. so its now ready to use. getdataback hasnt been turned off so i can just select the files which is all and start the recover process.
current time is 1:40pm so i expect it to take 24hrs.

Thanks to those that tried to help.

questd4

Hi,

Previously I was able to perform unformat drive data recovery when I had accidentally formatted the wrong drive. You can download demo version of this tool from the internet, which helps you to preview the recovered data.

For more detail visit this site: unformatdrive.com/data-recovery.html