Can my OS be recovered easily from a quick formatted hard drive?

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Reputable
Aug 31, 2015
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My wife purchased a new big box store HP computer that came with Windows 10 and changed the hard drive out for an SSD within one week of using the computer.
I did a quick format of the original drive and was just wondering if I sold this drive on Craigslist could someone recover her OS easily and end up being problematic for her new computer?

Thanks.
 
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captaincharisma
a quick format is only overwriting all the data once and is basically just marking everything opn the drive writable. there are programs out there that will fiormat the drive further but there are always ways to get the data if someone wants it/ my advice would be to keep the drive as a spare or destroy it
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captaincharisma

captaincharisma

Glorious
Oct 13, 2004
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a quick format is only overwriting all the data once and is basically just marking everything opn the drive writable. there are programs out there that will fiormat the drive further but there are always ways to get the data if someone wants it/ my advice would be to keep the drive as a spare or destroy it
 
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boosted1g

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Jun 12, 2013
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Not quite correct, a quick format does not overwrite anything, it only clears the bit in the file information that now allows that data to be overwritten. Thus a quick format is like a large scale delete that can be undone.

A full format on the other had overwrites all bits to 0.

You can use Paragon or Easus partition recover software and should be able to undo deleting/quick formatting the partition.

Just don't do ANYTHING with the drive until then, and you will need to plug your hard drive into another computer to run the program on.
 
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