Windows boot disc deleted external hard drive

[klhsx1]

Hey guys,

I used my external hard drive to create the windows installer. I didn't realize that it would format the drive, there was no warning of this. I had 4 years of work on that drive, and it is now gone. The drive also says its only 32 mb.

Is there any way to retrieve the data?

Thanks

 

[Alec Mowat]

You can find an undelete program, but it generally only works on files that have not been written over.
IE: if the Windows installer copied 2 GB of Data to the USB stick, 2 GB of files would have been written over. The quick format itself just clears the boot sectors, but the data is still technically on the drive.

Recuva is free
https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva/download

 

[USAFRet]

Hey guys,

I used my external hard drive to create the windows installer. I didn't realize that it would format the drive, there was no warning of this. I had 4 years of work on that drive, and it is now gone. The drive also says its only 32 mb.

Is there any way to retrieve the data?

Thanks

1. Yes, there were multiple warnings.
2. It is 32GB, not MB.
3. Try a partition recovery tool, like:
EaseUS
https://www.easeus.com/partition-recovery/index.htm

or Minitool
https://www.minitool.com/free-tools/minitool-partitionrecovery.html

 

[klhsx1]

Actually there was no warning, I did not download this from the windows site, I got if from "on the hub" through my school website it only said make sure you have at least 8 gig free , anyway I appreciate your help.

 

[klhsx1]

I did no use a windows installer, and create a boot disk, I went to on the hub, and it asked if I wanted to install from an external drive and I said yes and specified the drive, its been a few years since I had to do this so I forgot that it would format the entire disk.

 

[USAFRet]

I did no use a windows installer, and create a boot disk, I went to on the hub, and it asked if I wanted to install from an external drive and I said yes and specified the drive, its been a few years since I had to do this so I forgot that it would format the entire disk.

Try the above mentioned tools.

And always, always always have backups, no matter what you are doing.

"4 years of work" on a single external drive is begging for trouble. As you've discovered.

 

[klhsx1]

I just went over the process again, and the confusion arises from the "download" button in in place of any "create boot disk" menu that you normally see from a windows installer setup,

I specified the download to my external drive, and at that point it created a boot disk.

 

[klhsx1]

I was literally in the process of backing it up, I was transfering from one computer to another, thats when it happened, I just deleted it off the original computer a step too early.

here is the step by step process with ZERO warning that the boot disk will format the drive

after reviewing the process, the warning is before the download page, with a big button that says download.

I have taken snaps but I dont know how to upload them.

is there any guide that takes you through the process of recover?

thanks again

 

[USAFRet]

The above mentioned tools....EaseUS and Minitool...both have in depth user guides.
Don't do anything more with this drive until you try either of those. No more writes or whatever.

Screencaps are not needed.
The deed is done. Now, time to try to recover.

 

[badger_boi]

Necro, but I just had the exact same thing happen to me, 4TB of data
Cannot believe there was no warning.
The fact that the official W10 installer is too dumb to even flag that it's about to nuke 100x more data than it needs is inexcusable

 

[USAFRet]

Necro, but I just had the exact same thing happen to me, 4TB of data
Cannot believe there was no warning.
The fact that the official W10 installer is too dumb to even flag that it's about to nuke 100x more data than it needs is inexcusable

It specifically says this twice.

At the MS site where you get it:

The tool in use, where you select the flash drive to use: