Computer gurus help!!!!!

leogtr

my hard drive accidently got formatted and I had files in there that couldnt get any more important!! I tried different recovery programs and software but none worked!:( one program found all the files and restored them but none of them work when you click on them:((

can anyone help me please guys I need someone who knows about these kinds of things:(

Mikaila31

how do you accidentally reformat a HDD? Unfortunately that kinda recovery has never been successful for me. I had a HDD failure awhile back, though I was able to pull the files off the HDD using the command prompt. It was a total PITA and a lot of them were corrupt beyond fixing. Luckily I didn't have too much important stuff on there that wasn't backed up, except some pictures I really liked...

When you click on these restored files do you get an error of some kind?

leogtr

see, its an external hard drive. Every time I plug it into the computer it asks me if I want to check for viruses and stuff so I always click yes. On one random day the computer asked me if I wanted to format it and I orcourse did not know what format meant. I thought it wouldnt be a problem but in 2 seconds 242 GIGABites worth of stuff was totally gone.

The recovery program found all the files but none work with any program.

Im just wondering how and why this stupid computer all of the sudden asks if I want to delete all my stuff?? and how could it do it in less than 3 seconds???:(

Mikaila31

okay it was a external. Did you ever format it the first time you used it? Formatting is done to most HDD so they can be used with an operating system. It didn't erase all that date in 2-3 seconds. Its just ready to overwrite it. IDK if you formatted it once before, but when you do it creates a file system. I'm probably not the best person to explain it... But formatting is generally the first thing done to a HDD. If you had fully reformatted an internal HDD your operating system would go *poof*. Best I understand it is it the underlying structure on a HDD. If you would compare it to a book it is like sections, chapters, directory, index, ect. It makes these then stores the data in them. Most important thing I can tell you is do not save anything to that external HDD until you either recover your data or give up on recovery. Saving any additional data my overwrite the old data.

What file types(ie: .doc, .mp3, .pdf, ect) are you trying to recover and what programs did you use/try?

leogtr

Oh okay thank you Mikaila that was helpful. I made a big mistake after I used a software called EASEUS-Data Recovery Wizard I found all the files and the program"recovered" them. Once it did I copied the information from the drive it was saved in to the original external hard drive that was formatted. Once I checked to see if the files worked (which I shouldve done before I copied them into the original drive) none of the files worked :( the files have their full original size and everything except the only thing is that they dont work.

is there any hope to get them to work?