Maximum PC

I'm at work, so I've not been able to try any googled software (Recuva from Piriform).

Last I was really really really drunk and accidentally did some bad things to my drives after re-installing my OS. (Windows 7 64 bit). The bottom line is that I ended up making a New Volume and then that forced me to do a quick format.

Will Recuva or any other software help me recover my data?

Ps> while it would be awesome to get the data back, 90% of my most important stuff is backed up multiple times. So while I'm sad about this my life is not over if I don't get it back.

Thanks for your help! (just looking for tips and tricks to read up on before I get home tonight and try and see what I can save)

If you already installed Windows 7, there's a good chance that most of your data is gone. Or at least 20GB or so. Otherwise, in theory, you should be able to recover data as quick formatting just erases the partitioning information and makes a new one.

I'm good there - OS was installed on a standalone SSD. Brain fart was on 2 additional storgage HDD's

Looks like a quick run with Recuva will do the trick!

Ouch!!!! There should be penalties for this one.

lol I've been using Recuva but I've had a couple issues

1) It has not successfully "recovered" any pictures at all, despite listing them as in "excellent" condition. They recover but are unable to be opened in neither Paint nor Windows Photo Viewer

2) an incredibly tiny amount of the original folder structure was recovered. This pretty much nullifies the recovery because it recovers multiple different backup files and program files all into the same directory, and I'm unable to manually sort through hundreds of Backup1 files.

I tried Tenorshare Data Recovery but had no greater success.

Currently trying TestDisk now.

I've got a few others to try too, but if the folder structure is irrecoverable then oh well...

If you don't mind spending the money, Active@ Partition Recovery has worked for me in the past after a full format. However, I haven't had the need for it since version 3, but I cannot imagine newer version working worse than the older versions. There is a free verison, but it lacks the following features (IIRC the first 2 features are what you need):
> Restores MBR, Partition Table and Boot Sectors from the backup
> Restores detected partition information and saves it back to HDD
> Corrects BOOT.INI automatically to keep the system bootable after changes in partitioning
> Corrects Volume Boot Sectors automatically to keep the partition integrity
> Manual mode for correction Volume Boot Sectors provided for advanced users new!
> Allows to fix damaged or missing MBR (Hard Disk Drive Master Boot Record)
> Performs partition recovery on-the-fly (no machine reboot is needed)

IIRC, the free version (last time I used it) was able to show the MBR, partition tables, & file structure intact before I purchased the full version.

cool thanks! will give it a run too! Never hurts to test them out

Thanks!

Thus far this software was the best at recovering the both the files *and* the structure. If I'm understanding correct I need to purchase the Professional version in order to be able to recover these?

I quick formatted the drive does that make this a partition issue or a deleted files issues?

It's both. Reformatting the drive wipes the MFT and metadata files, so it may be harder to recover files and/or the partition structure. But your chances of success depend on if the OS started writing to the drive.

Look the bottom line is those files are still there in those sectors until they get written over.

(Re-)Installed OS---those sectors were written over. Ran updates. Those sectors are written over. Installed drivers. Those sectors are written over. Allowed OS to cache on drive --- those sectors are written over. Write anything to drive (save) --- those sectors are written over.

The longer you poke at this the more you lose. It should be set up as a non-cached, secondary or external drive---preferably temporarily read-only. Even better is a sector by sector verified backup which takes many hours.

Yah it's not clear in the OP but the drives to be recovered are all secondary storage drives, so I expect to get just about every single file back.

Thanks all!

Actually, magnetic storage hard drives don't quite work that way... Yes you can write over the old data, but guess what, the old data is still there... My first experience with Active@Partition Recovery came after I inadverdently formatted my Windows 98SE drive & installed WindowsXP Release Preview on the freshly formatted drive. IIRC, it was after a couple of days of using XP, that I went in to my PC to ballance my checking, & upon booting was notified that there was no boot drive found, that realized I had pulled the wrong hard drive out of my main PC. 100% of the Windows 98SE files were intact & recovered by Active@Partition Recovery. This is why the D.o.D. shreds hard drives that may contain "sensitive data".

Yah I ended up buying a bit of software from quetek as APR couldn't process my order and no one was answering phone calls today (nor returning my message...)

Pretty good software though - it's obv found my files and file structure but then also a TON of old deleted files from that HDD too. I'm pretty glad this all happened the way it did - with inconsequential data and in a manner that's easily recoverable. Very good positive learning experience