Recovery software for reformatted drive...

and fresh installed OS

One of my neighbors installed Norton 360, she says it told her it needed to update some plugins, once it was done, it said it needed to restart windows to finish installing the plugins... she was never able to boot to desktop after that.

without asking for help, she went ahead and did a complete System Restore and she is now without pictures, documents and other very important data.

I installing "On Track Easy Recovery Pro 6.12" on the fresh drive and use the featured they have to recover data from Freshly installed and Reformatted drives but I was unable to get anything out of it... all I got was what it was already there from the fresh install.

She is using Windows XP pro w/Media Center and this is a Vista forum but I got nowhere else to go and I don't trust anybody else.

I was thinking that if I install the software on my PC and use her drive as a slave or with a USB/SATA adapter I could get more data but I am thinking that it will yield the same results.

I have recovered data before but it has been on a dying but Unformatted drive... is there anything else I can try? any other software that you have first hand experience with cases similar to this? would anyone know if Norton 360 has some sort of reverse feature that I could use in order to get this back or am I just that naive

I need to help them as they have always helped us out and this could be a good way to repay them back... they are like family.

Whatever you can suggest, it will be greatly appreciated

I also have a software call "Recover my files" that I have also had some good results with but again... never with a reformatted/fresh install OS drive.

Thanks and sorry for the rant... I do that when I am anxious.

Unformat a Drive; Step by Step Unformat Data Recovery instructions
MS-DOS unformat command help

Look at the above two links first, if any help let me know.

You will have to be very careful as to what you put on the drive as this will over write what is already on the drive.

I would suggest looking for a cd/dvd that is bootable and can work without installing anything to the harddrive.

Or install the program onto an sd card.

I do not want to discourage you, but on a reformatted drive the case is pretty hopeless. All the reference points to the old files such as the Master File Table are gone. But this is what these recovery programs like RECUVA etc. need to find the files.

If a fast format was done then the fact that the MBR was destroyed just means it will take time.

Recover my files tells you that you don't install a new windows onto that formatted drive. Well, that is not an option for me since they already went and did that.

The DOS command will probably help if the drive was only formatted and left alone but, again... that is not the case here.

Well, I guess this is all I got to go on, in the end, I will feel good about having tried everything I could. I just hope they appreciate the fact that I DID TRY.

Now, if I fail, do you guys believe that taking it to a professional will yield any good results? Do they use more technologically advance software or all they are going to do is take the money from this folks and use the same software I have already use?

Also, again, is it better to install the software on the newly formatted drive with new windows on or would it be better to run that drive as a slave with a USB/Sata adapter?

Sorry if I seem thick headed and ungrateful, on the contrary, I thank you guys for all the help in this matter but I need to make sure I give these folks a fair chance of recovering something.

Taking it to a professional will yield very good results.
They can read the magnetic resonance of a hard drive.
This is how people can get files from an old machine sold at a second hand store.
Run the reformatted drive as a slave and write protect it while you are setting up the new drive.
Once the new drive is working you will have to take of the write protection to retrieve the old files.
The first two links I gave you was the first two that I found from google that looked any good.
I have had to retieve files from a harddrive in the past but that was 10 years ago.
I used dos and all of the files were numbered starting at 1, a right pain but I got a big pay rise for sorting it.

roy, can you offer some assistance as to where can this be taken? It looks more and more than they need to seek professional help... I am throwing the towel here!

Have a look a this: Data Recovery Services and Companies - Just be aware that those services are very expensive. Several hundred Dollars are not unusual. And here are the Florida outfits: http://www.datarecoverycompanies.com/florida.html

Thanks, I still have more more buckshot to throw at this puppy, if that fails... I'll give my friends that information.

Much appreciated guys.

Hi Asta,

The problem is that the reinstallation of the o/s will have overwritten a lot of the files. In addition , pretty much anything done on that new install will overwrite even more.

You should be able to recover files that have not been overwritten - check this out:

Recover Files After Format - Windows 7 Forums

I have since performed a similar experiment - this time much more challenging. It was an attempt to recover files from an area of the HD that had been partitioned several in the past, and several attempts to undelete the partition itself with different apps.

That meant the boot sectors would be confusing for undelete apps.

While Recuva did rescue some files - a good proportion were corrupt.

The good news is that Easeus Data Recovery Wizard managed to undelete a huge number of files - virtually all of which it restored in working condition. Vastly better than the free apps.

It is not intended for undeleting .exe, .msi,.iso and so on - it is for User files.

EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard: Advanced and Best Data Recovery Software to Undelete Files; Format Recovery; Recover Deleted Files.


You might give it a try - it is $70 though, and there's no knowing how much has been overwritten already.

Whichever undelete app. you use - do not install it on the partition you are trying to recover files from.

Another possibility - is Disk Digger - only looks for ceratin file types, and it's not quick, but it's free

DiskDigger can even scan reformatted or badly formatted disks (disks to which Windows can’t assign a drive letter), and even disks with bad sectors. It bypasses the Windows file system drivers and scans your disk directly.

Click to expand...

DiskDigger - free data recovery made easy | DmitryBrant.com

How do I ... recover lost data with DiskDigger? | Microsoft Windows | TechRepublic.com

Hello Asta,

It might be you lucky day. They just decided to giveaway Data Recovery Wizard Professional today, you can give it a try. It is free today, only. Download, install and register and you are ready to go.

SIW2 said:

Hi Asta,

The problem is that the reinstallation of the o/s will have overwritten a lot of the files. In addition , pretty much anything done on that new install will overwrite even more.

You should be able to recover files that have not been overwritten - check this out:

Recover Files After Format - Windows 7 Forums

I have since performed a similar experiment - this time much more challenging. It was an attempt to recover files from an area of the HD that had been partitioned several in the past, and several attempts to undelete the partition itself with different apps.

That meant the boot sectors would be confusing for undelete apps.

While Recuva did rescue some files - a good proportion were corrupt.

The good news is that Easeus Data Recovery Wizard managed to undelete a huge number of files - virtually all of which it restored in working condition. Vastly better than the free apps.

It is not intended for undeleting .exe, .msi,.iso and so on - it is for User files.

EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard: Advanced and Best Data Recovery Software to Undelete Files; Format Recovery; Recover Deleted Files.


You might give it a try - it is $70 though, and there's no knowing how much has been overwritten already.

Whichever undelete app. you use - do not install it on the partition you are trying to recover files from.

Another possibility - is Disk Digger - only looks for ceratin file types, and it's not quick, but it's free

DiskDigger can even scan reformatted or badly formatted disks (disks to which Windows can’t assign a drive letter), and even disks with bad sectors. It bypasses the Windows file system drivers and scans your disk directly.

Click to expand...

DiskDigger - free data recovery made easy | DmitryBrant.com

How do I ... recover lost data with DiskDigger? | Microsoft Windows | TechRepublic.com

Click to expand...

WOW, thanks SIW2, I will give this a try later on today... I have a huge headache form today's attempts.

I was able to recover a few Jpg's but they are all pretty much corrupt so I got to re to fix that now

Martee said:

Hello Asta,

It might be you lucky day. They just decided to giveaway Data Recovery Wizard Professional today, you can give it a try. It is free today, only. Download, install and register and you are ready to go.

Click to expand...

Martee, thank a lot.

Small problem though... link takes me to the Vista X64 Main page. Is there any way you can provide me with the working link?

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/download/?id=8308

If you are not familiar with how GAOTD works:

Usually, you d/l a .zip with a GAOTD setup file.

That is encrypted and you have to run it today.

Normally, the idea is you need to install the app. today and activate it. If you need to reinstall the app. - you are out of luck.

Some companies - Paragon , for example, and in this case Easeus have decided to let you keep the activated installer.

When you run the GAOTD Setup ( you have to run that today) - a self extracting rar will appear - by default it points at the C drive - you can change that by using the using browse button. Then Click Install.



It doesn't install the app. at that stage - it just deposits the DRWPROSetup.exe to where you pointed.

Make a copy of DRWPROSetup.exe and keep it somewhere safe. You can use it again and install whenever and wherever you like.

I found that almost everything under the RAW files heading could be rescued and almost all was in perfect condition.

Stuff under the Lost Files heading doesn't seem to be usable.

AstaLaVista said:

Small problem though... link takes me to the Vista X64 Main page. Is there any way you can provide me with the working link?

Click to expand...

Sorry, I don't know what happened, I had to do something wrong. Here's the link directly to the site Data Recovery Wizard Professional 4.3.6. Now it should work.

Cheers...

Thanks Martee, even though SIW2 already got it... appreciated nonetheless.

SIW2, since I am installing it at home and I won't need it here but in the office tomorrow, do I still install/active it today to get it for free or do I just copy the DRWPROSetup.exe and install it tomorrow at the office PC?

More questions than answers it seems

The only thing you need to today ( from past experience) is run the gotd setup, to extract the DRWSetup.exe.

That DRWSetup.exe is just like any normal installer and you can use it any time.

As far as I can tell, it is only the little gotd setup that needs to connect to the net today.

The DRWSetup just installs like anything else.

You would need to install it on a different partition from the one you want to recover from - and recover the data onto a different partition than the one you want to recover from.

Hope you get back what you need from that drive - a heck of a lot will have been overwritten already of course.

Seems like you should follow this :

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-formatted-partition.htm

You may also want to click options and tick only recover RAW files.

Thanks folks... I will look into this again on Monday, my brain is completely burnt out from trying everything I could this week... I am going to rest on the weekend and keep at it next week.

I have already told my friends of the choices they have and that the more I keep at it, the worse the options since files get even more corrupted but they understand.

oee you Monday

SIW2 said:

You would need to install it on a different partition from the one you want to recover from - and recover the data onto a different partition than the one you want to recover from.
Well, I don't know what kind of a logic I was using to think that I could recover more by using the software on the same drive I wanted to recover, I supposed that I'd figure since it was formatted and with a fresh install, using it as a slave would not yield good results... how wrong I was.

This morning I took the drive out, mounted it as a slave on my pc, used my Recover my Files software and I think I was able to get most of it.

I'll do another run tomorrow to see what else I can recover and call it in.

Click to expand...

SIW2 said:

Hope you get back what you need from that drive - a heck of a lot will have been overwritten already of course.

Click to expand...

Thanks a ton SIW2... I think my friends would be extremely happy with the results.

I would estimate that a good 80% to 90% will be recovered when all is said and done.

Great - thanks for the update.

That is a good recovery for a formatted hd with a new OS installed, I would say you are lucky:D