Recovering data rom an unformatted drive

[marblecatdog]

Recently my laptop hard drive has failed. I can no longer boot from it and when I use a hard drive enclosure to try and backup the data before reinstalling Windows it tells me the hard drive is not formatted. I need to get some data off the drive before I clear it but I can't figure out how to. Could someone help me?

 

[paq7512]

Try using Getdataback http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-downloads.htm
It should work fine, as long as the drive still mounts.

 

[theblackbird]

Personally I use R-Studio: http://www.data-recovery-software.net/ It's not free tho.

 

[RecklessNinja]

I have been trying to recover data from a drive that I accidentally deleted when I was setting up a RAID array. I tried numerous other software products, but none of them was able to even 'see' any files on the drive -- let alone recover them. I was about to give up until I came across this post, so I downloaded R-Studio and ran it in the free demo mode. Much to my pleasant surprise, R-Studio saw all the files and folders -- properly names and organized. Upon entering the registration code I was able to recover ALL my data.

In case you're wondering, I don't have much experience with data recovery and R-Studio offers so many options that I was quite perplexed at what to do until I came across a tutorial video on YouTube. After watching the video it was quite easy to scan the drive and recover the data.

R-Studio is an excellent product and I highly recommend it!

I understand that this thread is rather old, but I want to thank theblackbird for pointing out R-Studio and to help any others that might come across this thread.

 

[slowlylearningtechstuff]

Ditto....I am going to detail my situation below... in hopes that it may help someone else.

I bought an HP Simplesave 320gb portable hard drive to back up all of my computers and my flashdrives. My flashdrive crashed so I was using the backup....then, my portable hard drive crashed....it became inaccessible...the error message that appeared kept asking me to format disk because my disk was unformatted. Fortunately, I knew to click CANCEL instead to avoid losing all of my information.

I ran a (5 hour) diagnostic test on my hp simplesave via Western Digital which gave results including an error saying there were some bad sectors found that may be able to be repaired. I did not click repair and clicked cancel because I was advised (by very helpful and honest Western Digital employees) that there was only a 50/50 shot that this would work and there was a possibility that it could even cause further irrepairable damage increasing the probability of not being able to recover my data. I tried free software to no avail; because the drive could not be detected.
I came acrosss this posting and tried R-Studio and "Wallah."

I was able to download the R-studio demo which gives a preview of all of my files and allowed me to recover up to 64kb for free (which isn't much; kilobytes are less then megabytes or gigabytes). I was not able to see the size of the files recovered but an error message popped up when the maximum limit was reached (I was able to view and open the recovered files immediately). After recovering the 64kb of files, I was told which versions of their products I could purchase to recover my remaining files; (for my specific situation) these ranged from 49.99-179.99 and the installs for these are good for one machine only and cannot be transferred; but, can be continually used on that machine. I opted to go with the 79.99. which allows me to save unlimited amounts of data. I received the registration code immediately after submitting my credit card information. The recovery process took me about 20 minutes all together. The manual can be found at the same site the download is made from; this helped me figure out how to use it.

I highly recommend this software....the money was worth it. After I have had time to look over all of my recovered files, I'll attempt to repair the drive just to see what happens. Then, I'll send it back to the company for a free new one (but will be much more cautious this time ).

 

[snowshally]

I know this problem must be resolved for a long time.
But Actually, I encountered the “not formatted” problem last weekend. Therefore, as I read this thread, I was so excited that I could not wait to share my feelings with you.
After searching it on the internet, I finally found a free recovery program, which was highly recommended in several popular forums. Therefore, I had no choice but to try it. I remembered that I clicked a “Format Recovery” option from four according to its names, marked the needed files to recover and previewed some of them to confirm. It is really free and efficient.
You should go try this free recovery program:
http://www.squidoo.com/not-formatted-error
Note for you:
1. Stop using this drive immediately to avoid overwriting the original data, which can make your data gone permanently.
2. Save your recovered files on a different storage device in case of recovery failure.
3. Do not forget to format your drive to see whether it will work again.
4. Back up you data in the future in case of similar problem.