Hello, I am new to this forum and id like to say hello.
Last night I was getting all my files together on a external hard drive WD 1.5 TB
This morning once it all was complete I was going to format my other HD but accidently clicked format on the one everything was on...years and years of all my stuff
I noticed it was the wrong HD in about 2 seconds and just unplugged its power and usb cable. Idk if this is important but this is an external HD.
What is the best method of recovery? What program should I use? Is there a free one that could do the job?
Oh also when I plugged the external HD back in...it was like you must format this hd before you can use it..
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
Hi,
Use partition find and mount to try and get it back Partition Find and Mount — free partition recovery software on a hdd that size it may take a few hours but if its only had a format and nothing else has been put on it since then this should get the partition back.
My brother did exactly the same thing last week , so I told him 2 run this and it found the partitions which were formatted and he got everything back.
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
np thank you, I tried method 2..it didnt work either. Im trying that last one..the thourough scan. I hope this works :/ i cant believe what a stupid mistake I have made. pictures, movies/videos, music library, documents..i mean everything gone
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
Yeh I kno how you feel, did the same thing bout 4 years ago, meant 2 format 1 drive n lack of attention did my other 1 :/ - I managed to get everythin back luckily but used other software at the time, and when ma brother did it last week he used this software and with the first 2 options found nothing but on the 3rd got the lot. so all is not lost just yet if it finds the partition the scan still may take a while to complete - you should let it run all the way through. it will say when it's complete.
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
I will let it run all the way. I can tell it will take a long time..its only on 1% and its been 10 minutes. the hd was almost completely full So i understand. Ill be patient
thanks for your help. Im actually pretty good with computers..Do all my friends work. Just never dealt with data recovery.
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
ok kwl, I have done a fair bit of data recovery over the years but my kinda customers dont really have the kinda money to spend on it and therefor I don't get as many as i used to :/ I mainly repair laptop hardware faults n smartphones thesedays
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
Man thats pretty cool. What I usually do is build custom pcs and just clean up computers for people. What do you mean by laptop hardware faults. Could you fix ..for example a laptop power charger connector. Ive head many people wiggle the cable around too much and It gets loose (its attached to mobo i guess) so the repair at best buy is like 400 bucks.
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
Yh, no-s**t but thats my most common repair and I charge £69 for it, most people in my county charge between £75-£90 but at the price of jacks and cos I can strip a laptop to nothing in bout 15 minutes I can afford to under-cut them. If it's fixable and parts are obtainable if needed then i'll fix jus bout anything. The DC jacks are usually soldered to the mobo but sometimes specificly the newer dell laptops they are soldered to there own board which is connected to the mobo by a socket. some jacks are on a cables - common in toshiba's but sometimes found in other brands like acer.
You should defo do a jack at some point, there so easy and the dc jacks are available on ebay for bout £2 upwards. I usually use a heat gun to remove the jacks because its harder to de-solder multiple points with a soldering iron. then clean up the points with isopropyl then solder the new jack on with leaded or silver solder. If u decide to give it a go and u use a heat gun to remove the jack - remember to cover any plastic connecters with foil to prevent melting.
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
I have had great luck with GetDataBack NTFS. download the trial version and it will tell you what if anything it can recover, and then you decide if it is worth it to pay to actually recover those files.
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
I apologize for not being more specific.
I am running raid 0 with two 64 gb solid state drivers..and i have my Os on there..
This is an external HD that i am using.. I clicked FORMAT..and then 2 seconds later i unplugged it..There was no OS on it..just files ofcourse. When i plugged it back in..it just..said you need to format drive in order to use it.
I didnt do that...I just found this site and posted
thank you all for the help.
right now that program is still running.. Partition Find and mount. Its been running for 9 hours..its only on 50 %..I got a long time to go.
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
nice, sounds like a great way to make some money! I took apart laptops before..I replaced a couple broken screens and so on. I been working on computers for 5 years. Im pretty sure if me and you spoke in more detail about it in AIM or msn or something. I could learn that quickly and attempts it my self
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
I'm at work but wanted to post an update on what has happened. That program I used it found a 200mb partition on the basic scan. Then I did medium and then thorough and it only found the 200 mb partition unless I'm looking at it wrong. I opened the folder and it was empty.
Was it bad that I unplugged the power and USB connection to the drive to stop the format? There is no way it could have erased 1.4 terabytes in like 2 seconds. I unplugged it so fast.
When I get home I will download another one of those programs above and test my luck again.
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
Yh partitions get corrupt easy if unplugged when in use. your hdd will b ntfs, its not standard for external hard drives to be formatted as fat32 thesedays. If your partition got corrupt ontop of being formatted then find n mount would find this difficult. Gdb ntfs is better for this as it uses different recovery methods based on how the data was `lost`
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
You gota press yes to all. it cant read from the sector properly because the hard drive is starting to fail - bad sectors. if you manage to get all your data you should probably consider replacing the hard drive
Re: PLEASE HELP-I accidentaly clicked Format on wrong HD
Been reading your post, and your doing fine. Data recovery takes time and patience. What most likely happened when you unplugged the HD is you trashed the Master File Table, and now it is showing a raw format, and widows doesn't know how to read it. Also when you format a drive all your files are still there, the sectors on the drive have been marked as "available" and can be over written. That is when you start to lose data, by over writing the data.
The only exception is when you do a zero fill on a drive, then your data is pretty much gone.
I've had drives where the data recovery software I use could do anything with the drive, so I had to format the drive just to get files off of it
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