How do I recover from a format?

[fullinfusion]

I wasn't paying attention this morning as I was setting up a spare SSD and I accidentally formatted my storage drive. What program can I use that's faster then using Recuva?

 

[ReadD8]

GetDataBack for NTFS, if the original MFT is more or less untouched and GetDataBack can find it and analyze it, there are many chances of recovering near everything including proper folder layouts and filenames.

 

[erixx]

But warn him that GetDataBack is payware. Recuva is good. Most of this software is slow.

 

[Aquinus]

I wasn't paying attention this morning as I was setting up a spare SSD and I accidentally formatted my storage drive. What program can I use that's faster then using Recuva?

...and you didn't have a backup? What's wrong with you?!?! I hope this is a learning experience for not having a backup.

I would do as other suggest, but the more you do with the drive the worse it will get. Did the Windows install actually get to writing Windows files? You might find some data could be corrupted if that's the case.

 

[m&m's]

As others stated, if you only formatted the drive without writing on it, you're fine.

Download this: http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html, burn a disk or create a bootable USB drive and recover your partition.

How to: http://www.partitionwizard.com/video-help/partition-recovery-wizard/partition-recovery-wizard.html

 

[TheMailMan78]

Lesson. Always unplug drives you are not formatting or installing an OS to.

 

[micropage7]

Lesson. Always unplug drives you are not formatting or installing an OS to.

yep, especially when you run many drives

 

[Aquinus]

Lesson. Always unplug drives you are not formatting or installing an OS to.

yep, especially when you run many drives

Or making sure that you're choosing the right drive when you decide to format it can go a long way... I don't know about the OP, but my storage drives are much different than my boot drives. Also having a backup would have eliminated the need for this in the first place. I hope you're all not trying to say to the OP that it was okay to not have a backup.

 

[fullinfusion]

I was installing windows on a benching ssd and it was before the morning coffee kicked in

I do have a back up of all my important photos and such but what I really wanted back was a patch to run an older game I play all the time. Its gone and even MS site don't have the patch any more so go figure. It took about 8hrs to recover 97% of my stuff but sadly the rest is gone.

I snicker how some preach about how i should have back ups and how i should be more careful blah blah, I'm sure all ya made a booboo a few times in your lives so I'm no different. I asked for a program to recover that worked faster then the one I was using and no more. Thanks to the members that actually helped

 

[TheMailMan78]

You're welcome.

 

[erixx]

AND... Lesson 2 (recently confirmed...): Don't keep relevant data on a system disk that you are messing with. First move the data out, then format, partition, initialize...

 

[Aquinus]

AND... Lesson 2 (recently confirmed...): Don't keep relevant data on a system disk that you are messing with. First move the data out, then format, partition, initialize...

Isn't that the same as keeping a current backup of your stuff? If you have a backup you shouldn't have to worry because it's all somewhere else already. I think that's what I (and others,) are getting at. As for unplugging the drives, only do that if you can't trust yourself to do it. Me unplugging my drives will degrade and destroy my RAID-5 HOWEVER I have backups of it so not all would be lost if I did nuke it.

I snicker how some preach about how i should have back ups and how i should be more careful blah blah, I'm sure all ya made a booboo a few times in your lives so I'm no different. I asked for a program to recover that worked faster then the one I was using and no more. Thanks to the members that actually helped

Your welcome but you only have yourself to blame if you nuke you drive and don't have a backup that contains all of your stuff you care about. If your backup doesn't have everything, than it's incomplete and isn't a full backup. All of which is still your fault and was entirely avoidable by either:
A: Not reinstalling Windows before you were awake (considering you have stuff you cared about, this was a bad call on your part.)
B: Not being more careful about what drive your selecting to install Windows on.
C: Not double checking your backup before you nuked your machine.

Tired or not, you made several mistakes that brought you down this road, you didn't have a full backup which was #1 and you made huge changes to your machine right after you woke up and before your brain was running which was number two, and you didn't make sure you had everything which was #3.

I'm no going to peach that I'm perfect and I will never lose data, but I also double check all of my backups before I nuke Windows and if Windows fails itself, I use a Linux livecd to ensure I didn't miss anything. Just being more careful could save you time and a headache. I personally also don't reinstall Windows right after I just woke up, if I'm really tired, after drinking, or anything that inhibits my brain from running normally. I've already been down this road many years ago and I say all of these things because no one else should have to deal with what I did when I lose all my stuff because I was too stupid to keep my backup up to date or to unplug my backup drive because this very thing has happened to me before as well and the best way to prevent it is to simply be more careful.

 

[erixx]

^not the same. I have various backups set up (1 global, 1 job stuff , 1 private)... Sometimes we, I or you, do temporary files moving around that are not instantly included in our backups*, and what not and then... stuff happens.

* I much prefer instant backup a.k.a. continuous back up, but here it interferes with work software, so i must use p.e. nightly programmed backups.

(My error was to trust Paragon crappy partition suite and not autolearning more about GPT...) So tip THREE would be DO NOT TRUST TOOLS OR TOOLS (pun totally intended), and copy copy copy! : )

 

[Aquinus]

^not the same. I have various backups set up (1 global, 1 job stuff , 1 private)... Sometimes we, I or you, do temporary files moving around that are not instantly included in our backups*, and what not and then... stuff happens.

* I much prefer instant backup a.k.a. continuous back up, but here it interferes with work software, so i must use p.e. nightly programmed backups.

(My error was to trust Paragon crappy partition suite and not autolearning more about GPT...) So tip THREE would be DO NOT TRUST TOOLS OR TOOLS (pun totally intended), and copy copy copy! : )

Ehh, yeah. You're right. I tend to write my own backup scripts that will use something like rsync, but that's me. I don't make images of my RAIDS, I just manage my own backup scripts and runs them on cron or something. One is on an external drive, the other is on a secondary RAID-5 on my server.

Also consider, you don't lose much if you've only lost a day worth of changes. I would consider that a complete backup.