Help! accidentally reformatted external drive!Need good file recovery!

Birddude007 · 21 Jun 2013

Ok folks I accidentally reformatted my 3 TB drive with the USB drive formatter(dont ask how I did that)
I used EASUS recovery program, I utilized the middle setting but the files came up as lost files in no particular order. Is the any program out there where I can just reverse the format that I did and recover my files in their original file structure?
I now have the EASUS Partition recovery doing a scan,,,,,maybe it wil set my file structure back up the way it was.
I however have all my image files recovered but they are in a "lost files" folder and are just listed willy nilly. and there is 400 gigabytes of those to peruse through......it sux
I have yet to write any data on that HD and I refuse to until I can get this straightened up....too bad there isn't a program that just reverses the reformat mistake I made

Ztruker · 21 Jun 2013

No, no such program exists. Give Recuva a try. I've had good success with it.

If that doesn't do it then you would need to contact a professional data recovery firm which is not cheap.

Birddude007 · 21 Jun 2013

Does Recuva put your files back in the order that you had them ei - File tree structure? because, I have Recuva and I hear that they also just recover the files in just one folder and not in the file structure you originally had before you reformat a HD.....is that true?
If that is true then I will go ahead and run Recuva if it places the files in their original file structure

Shadowjk · 21 Jun 2013

Not many do and I do believe Recuva doesn't. When you delete the file the folder location is lost. From the programs perspective it just searches for data. I would also expect to find a lot of corrupt or in-partial data when running recovery programs. To get the best chance of recovering as much as you can then run the application as soon as possible! 100% recovery is not guaranteed and is very slim that it will

Josh

Birddude007 · 21 Jun 2013

Shadowjk said:

Not many do and I do believe Recuva doesn't. When you delete the file the folder location is lost. From the programs perspective it just searches for data. I would also expect to find a lot of corrupt or in-partial data when running recovery programs. To get the best chance of recovering as much as you can then run the application as soon as possible! 100% recovery is not guaranteed and is very slim that it will

Josh

so basically what you are saying is that I should just be happy to have my images back, whether or not they agree with my Lightroom setting anymore

Lee · 21 Jun 2013

Birddude007 said:

Shadowjk said:

Not many do and I do believe Recuva doesn't. When you delete the file the folder location is lost. From the programs perspective it just searches for data. I would also expect to find a lot of corrupt or in-partial data when running recovery programs. To get the best chance of recovering as much as you can then run the application as soon as possible! 100% recovery is not guaranteed and is very slim that it will

Josh

so basically what you are saying is that I should just be happy to have my images back, whether or not they agree with my Lightroom setting anymore

Yes to your last question. . .and as to the rest you will probably just have to bite the buffet. At some time or another must of us have done what you did, albeit we have had everything backed up on external HDDs or on DVDs. Always keep a backup HDD unhooked from the system unless you are backing up new files or replacing files on a internal HDD. . .Good Luck.

jumanji · 21 Jun 2013

You may try MiniTools Partition Wizard and/or TestDisk for partition/data recovery.

Recover a flash drive turned RAW – Partition Wizard and TestDisk.

Regain a lost drive using Test Disk - An Illustrated Guide

Phone Man · 21 Jun 2013

Recurva has an option to restore folder structure under actions.

Jim

Birddude007 · 22 Jun 2013

Phone Man said:

Recurva has an option to restore folder structure under actions.

Jim

ya i saw that.....but does it work?

Phone Man · 22 Jun 2013

Birddude007 said:

Phone Man said:

Recurva has an option to restore folder structure under actions.

Jim

ya i saw that.....but does it work?

Yes it will. I had erased an external drive and did a recovery on some files. I created a recover folder on one of my internal drives and recovered the files I wanted to that folder and it recreated the file directory. Give it a try, it lets you recover a single file if you want to test.

Jim