HD file recovery tools????

[Mike Semen]

Can anybody recommend a good file recovery tool? Just formatted an old HD and realised there's a few meg of personal pics on there it would be nice to keep...

[rowan]

What did you use to format it, and was it a quick or full format?

[rowan]

Just adding to my last post...

If you did a quick format, AND you haven't written anything to the drive (including system files during format) then you can probably recover everything.

If you did a full format then you're probably out of luck unless you engage a data recovery specialist and pony up big $$$$

[uno]

GetDataBack has worked for me in the past.

[Mike Semen]

bit more complex than that I'm afraid. The drive is a bit fucked and hung on 25% of a full format. I then did a quick one so I can use it as a scratchdisk.

So yes and no

[StuBradley]

even with 25% of a full format 95% of the data will be unrecoverable. hard drives scatter the information everywhere.

[rowan]

even with 25% of a full format 95% of the data will be unrecoverable. hard drives scatter the information everywhere.

25% of a full format will zero out 25% of the drive.

[tASSy]

ack, frustrating problem! i'll be interested to see what other recovery tools people are using after a full format (or part of a full format).

[RegUser]

just google for rec4all. It is free and excellent

[StuBradley]

25% of a full format will zero out 25% of the drive.

Yes, but when a hard drive writes a file it does not write it all in one sector. He has lost 25% of his sectors. Granted most of his files (pictures) will have 75% of their data untouched, but you need 100% of the file for it to be recoverable. I would guess that 90-95% of the files had at least SOME PART of their data in one of the sectors that are now gone. Like you said before, he can recover the sectors lost in the full format, but not with a simple windows program...he's gonna have to send it somewhere and pay big $$$.

[rowan]

Yes, but when a hard drive writes a file it does not write it all in one sector. He has lost 25% of his sectors. Granted most of his files (pictures) will have 75% of their data untouched, but you need 100% of the file for it to be recoverable. I would guess that 90-95% of the files had at least SOME PART of their data in one of the sectors that are now gone. Like you said before, he can recover the sectors lost in the full format, but not with a simple windows program...he's gonna have to send it somewhere and pay big $$$.

A file system may not store files in a linear fashion, but the formatting process itself is linear. Formatting 25% will have erased 25% of the sectors from the start. Also, most file systems still prefer writing as close to the start of the drive as possible. What do you think defrag does? Moves everything back that way...