Recover Data After Format

Even after a complete format of your hard drive, it is still possible to recover some data on your hard drive. However, some information will be lost that is impossible to recover. Professionals at data recover services can get this kind of data restored. Recovery of data is usually accomplished through the use of software on your computer.

Some software used to recover data from a hard drive are Knoppix, SystemRescueCD, and Recuva. Recuva runs on all major Windows operating systems, including Windows 7. It is able to recover files that have been formatted and has been marked as an empty sector on the hard drive. This program works by looking for traces of files that are still hidden within the hard disk, and marked as unreferenced.

Recuva has an easy-to-use GUI and can be used by people that are not quite familiar with the process. Another great product that can be used is TestDisk, a free data recovery software that can be used on flash, internal, and external hard drives. Similar to a couple of other software products, it works by scanning the hard drive for the records of deleted or formatted directories that may still exist on your hard drive. It can also be used for flash memory data recovery.

TestDisk is compatible with a variety of different operating systems. This includes Windows, DOS, Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and SunOS, making it virtually useful for anyone who has formatted their hard drive. It works over a command-line interface, but is still simple and easy enough for a novice to handle if instructions on the website of the developer are followed correctly. Even if your hard drive has been formatted to a different filesystem, for example FAT32 to NTFS, TestDisk can still recover it in most cases.

It will revert to the previous filesystem and look through entries hidden in the hard drive, recovering the data. Many other powerful expert features can be utilized, making it an all-in-one convenient tool.

A Linux Live CD tool, SystemRescueCD, uses PhotoRec to recover lost data from accidental deletion or from formatting. Most modern filesystems store files in data blocks, when they are formatted, the info identifying certain files are lost, but the data is still present on the hard drive. Once new data or information is written over it, this data will be eventually lost. SystemRescueCD will look for the size of the data blocks and calculates them according to their location on the disk. However, some fragmented files may not be able to be recovered completely, as parts of the file are all over the hard drive. All of these tools are quick and efficient for recovering data lost during a hard drive format.