let me explain the basics of data recovery, when a file is being deleted its not truly gone it just becomes invisible same happens when you format, it just hides in the partition free space well at least til you overwrite the data with other, so to make a long story short ,doing any of these will lower the chances of the recovery making it hard upto impossible
1) adding new data to the partition the file/s were erased from , this include copying/downloading/installing softwares or games to it
2) running a defrag on the partition the file/s were erased from
now if you just formatted the hard drive and so far didnt put any new data to it then your recovery chances are very high , however if you did put new data to it such as reinstalling the operating system then as alredy said above it makes it harder upto impossible , since deleted files are stored in the partition's free space any new data may overwrite the files you wanna recover and once that happens theres nothing you can do about it
this is what you should do in these types of data loss situations:
(also never ever save lost data to the same partition it was deleted from)
1) you deleted files from another partition (not your main c: one that runs the operating system) or formatted another partition - simply use a data recovery software and of course do not download/install it to that partition where the data loss has occured
2) you formatted the main partition (c
and just rememberd there was important data there / you deleted files from your main partition again c:- connect it to another pc and install data recovery software on it
3) the hard drive is suddenly not recognized by the bios+makes no unusual sounds+when you touch it theres nothing you dont feel it spinning - this means the hard drive pcb board (the lower green board with the power/ide connectors) is fried there are two things you can do in such situtation
a) get a totally identical hard drive and i dont mean just model but identical firmware aswell (that should be written on the hd sticker) and a date of manufacture as close as possible to yours. anyway after you get it you simply detach the pcb board from it and connect it to your bad hard drive and then connect it as usual if all goes well then it will work fine again and youll regain access to all of your data. this method works in about 60% of cases. check out this site
http://www.deadharddrive.com/
b) if "a" didnt work or you couldnt find an identical hard drive then you need to think how much you value your data and if your willing to spend alot of money for a professional data recovery service (btw i recommend ontrack/cbl data recovery)
4) the hard drive makes loud clicking sound and you cant access it or its not being recognized by the bios -
a) you can try this professional data recovery software that suppost to recover data from mechanicly failing drives even if the bios dont recognize the hd
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/mediatools_pro.php of course if youll be abel to see your files youll have to buy it in order to recover em,also naturally you gotta have another hard drive to recover the data to it
c) just like "b" above
d) try the old freezer trick,for this youll also need another hard drive to recovery the data to it , the trick is to put the hard drive in a sealed antistatic bag and put it in the freezer for an hour or two then pull it out and quickly connect it to the pc if this works the hard drive will work for only a limited time (around 20 minutes or less) during that time youll have to copy your data to the other hard drive if you wont have enough time to copy all the data you want then youll be able to re use the trick if it worked once it should work again just do it til youll get all of it and when done just trash it
5) the hard drive isnt recognized by the bios but doesnt make any unusual sounds+when you touch it you feel it spinning
a) just like "a" on the previous
b) just like "b" above
6) you cant access to certain file/s due to bad sectors - use spinrite or hdd regenerator they will attempt to re read each sector alot of times it will get some of the files back to its normal readable state but maybe not all of em , also its best to rma or buy a new hard drive when bad sectors occur
7) you had no idea you been doing and accidently erased a partition that had important data
a) use acronis disk director suite it can recovery lost partitions
b) use active partition recovery
after a partition is being deleted its still there with all the data just invisible , both programs will recovery it will data that was on it
but if youll create a new partition from the unpartinion space after you deleted the partition then those programs wont be able to help youll just have to use data recovery softwares in such a case but of course that if you also added new files to the new partition it lowers the chances but again why would you do such a thing
now lets talk about data recovery softwares,the recovery process (searching for recoverable data that is) is read only it cant overwrite the data you wanna recover (at least it will never happen if you wont save the recovered data to the partition it was deleted from)
i recommend these data recovery softwares
1) media tools pro
2) easyrecovery pro
3) r-studio
4) getdataback
5) data rescue pc
6) file scavenger
i hope you learned alot from reading all of this
