Acccidentally Formatted HD... recover?

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Celcius

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Aug 7, 2011
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/rant
So tonight I decided to attempt to remove my windows XP dual boot with windows 7. Everything was going well until I realized that the boot manager was on the windows XP drive. It was suggested to me that I boot up the system disk and format the HD with windows XP on it and then run the startup repair a few times. Unfortunately it seems that the install CD did not keep the drive letters the same and so I accidentally started a format on my windows 7 drive, with all of my important files, etc.
/endrant

So when I accidentally started formatting the windows 7 drive(using just the "format" command with no flags) a minute or so passed and I realized that the HD size it reported was wrong so I stopped it at 0% formatted.

After that I decided to attempt to get a directory listing of the files in the windows 7 drive and it just gave back errors. I then tried a Paragon recovery kit disk, it listed the windows 7 drive as unformatted and it reported that it couldn't find any recoverable partitions.

Right now I'm unable to even boot from XP (as I removed it from the boot menu right before this).

I do have access to a laptop however, so I can burn bootable disks, etc.

Any ideas on recovering this, if it's at all possible?
 
Solution
nukemaster
I recommend you STOP using that drive and try something like Recuva from another system if you can.

You will need a usb/esata depending on the laptop specs adapter to connect it to the laptop. OR use another desktop if you have access(any friends owe you a favor?)

The important thing here is that you do NOT write ANY data to that drive until you have got everything you can off of it. You may need another drive if your laptop or other system lacks the needed space for file recovery. This may just be file recovery, so do not get your hopes up about restoring the operating system and everything.

You may find other recovery related programs(free and paid).

All cases are different, it does not sound like you overwrote the...
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nukemaster

nukemaster

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Nov 23, 2004
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I recommend you STOP using that drive and try something like Recuva from another system if you can.

You will need a usb/esata depending on the laptop specs adapter to connect it to the laptop. OR use another desktop if you have access(any friends owe you a favor?)

The important thing here is that you do NOT write ANY data to that drive until you have got everything you can off of it. You may need another drive if your laptop or other system lacks the needed space for file recovery. This may just be file recovery, so do not get your hopes up about restoring the operating system and everything.

You may find other recovery related programs(free and paid).

All cases are different, it does not sound like you overwrote the full drive(did get the start of it for sure) or anything.
 
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Solution
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Celcius

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Thanks a lot!

I don't know much about hard drive connections(I'm researching right now), but is esata only for external hard drives? Sorry I didn't say it earlier, however the hard drive I'm talking about is internal. Would the esata adapter still work if it's internal or do I need to buy an external enclosure for the hard drive that has a usb port, etc?
 
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nukemaster

nukemaster

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Nov 23, 2004
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esata is an external sata port for sure. they make cables that go e-sata to sata allowing normal drives to be used without the enclosure. A computer or power supply is still needed to make them spin.

Even the same computer as long as you can run the operating system off another drive and save files to that other drive will work. The only real key is to avoid writing any data to the drive that has been formatted by mistake.
 
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C

Celcius

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Aug 7, 2011
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Thanks!

Unfortunately it seems Recuva didn't work as it couldn't figure out the filesystem type, so I'm still looking for software. Also, will I be unable to actually save the operating system on the HD? It sounds like all of the solutions are able to recover files, but you need to put the recovered files on a different hard drive. I'm assuming I may have to still fully format the drive after I've recovered everything I need?
 
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nukemaster

nukemaster

Titan
Nov 23, 2004
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74,965
Yes you can format after you recover. At this point reinstalling the OS and moving files back on can also be done.

My next recommendation would be Easy Recovery. It is NOT free, but has a trial to let you see what it can do first. If these files are worth it, go ahead and buy to recover.

I had used this very long ago(so long ago the company name has changed) and it was able to recover nearly all files from a drive that had been quick formatted(yours may be a bit harder, but I think it is still worth a shot.).

http://www.krollontrack.com/data-recovery/recovery-software/

If you do get all your files back. I HIGHLY recommend getting your self setup with an external backup system that is OFF when not doing backups or a cloud based backup depending on your amount of data. This should reduce the chances of this happening in the future.
 
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