How to Recover Files after Format?

Drive data erased after format

You might need to format a hard drive whilst installing an operating system for the first time, trying to get rid of viruses, cleaning your hard drive to sell your computer, removing errors from your hard drive, etc. When you format the hard drive that has been previously formatted, say changing the file system from FAT to NTFS on Windows, then it is logically termed as reformatting.

Once you format the hard drive, the operating system erases all bookkeeping information present on the disk, marks the bad sectors and tests the disk to make sure all sectors are reliable and creates internal address tables that are used to locate information for later added data. The following are a few precautions that you must follow before you format the hard drive.

• Create a proper backup of all your valuable data and information from your hard drive before you start the format process. However, if you are formatting hard drive because viruses have caused serious system and file system damages, then a backup might not be possible.
• Before you begin the formatting process, it is important to make sure you have all the drivers of your hardware located, the Windows CD and all-important software to have a smooth setup.

It is possible to restore formatted drive data!!!

Data on a disk is not fully erased once you format the hard drive, only address table is erased. The area on the hard disk containing the data is marked as available so that new data can be added. A few precautions that you must follow after you format the hard drive-

• If you have performed formatting and want to recover all the data from your formatted hard drive, then it is very important that you do not write/save any new data onto the formatted drive as it will overwrite the previous data and you will lose it permanently.
• It is important to make use of effective data recovery software to ensure complete recovery of lost data from the formatted hard drive.

Unformat drive data using My File Recovery software

Since that formatted old data remains until it is overwritten and you can retrieve formatted data using the professional tools like My File Recovery. This file recovery software for Windows is excelled in restoring n formatted storage drive using the efficient recovery engine. To securely extract formatted data, the tool deep scans the drive and brings back files containing any extension (supports more than 300+ file types). When the scanning is complete, it displays the recovery results on a preview screen. You can also use this advanced file recovery software for Mac to unformat drive volumes. A trial version of this software is also available for free. My File Recovery is also serves as a powerful USB pen drive file recovery tool. In addition to this, the software can also perform-

• File Recovery after System Restore
• File Recovery from External USB Drive
• File Recovery from SD Memory Card
• File Recovery after re-installing Windows
• File Recovery after Reformat
• File Recovery after Deletion

Note: This software can recover files from Transcend memory card and of various other popular brands of memory cards.

Steps to recover data after format

Step 1: Open the My File Recovery program and select the Recover Files option on the main screen.

Step 2: Locate the formatted drive from the list of logical drives and press on the Scan button.

Figure 1: Main Screen

Step 3: The drive unformat process begins with the scan operation.

Figure 2: Scanning for files

Step 4: Now check the extracted files and folders from the formatted drive.

Figure 3: Recovery results

Step 5: Now preview the restored files and pick the required data items for saving.

Figure 4: Preview Window

Step 6: Specify a storage drive location to save the files fetched from the formatted hard disk.

Figure 5: Save Recovered Files