help needed to recover files...

[Zangetsu]

Hi all,

I accidentally dropped my 40GB HDD from a height of 2.5feet.....& now
the problem is it is detected on My Computer but i cant access it...whenever
i double-click its "Drive G: is not formatted do u want to format?" but i cant format it coz i have my 17GB of data inside.can i recover it..if yes then how?

[Piyush]

there is one utility by which u can recover the data even if its formated
NOTE:almost all of the guys think that formatting makes the data lost.Its not so,u can recover it by the utilities.

i dont exactly remember the name
but every company(WD/SEagate/...) have their own s/w utilities to combat this situation

[tejaslok]

use Stellar data recovery soft they are the best in that line, i used it to recover data from FAT32 and even used it for NTFS and they worked like charm. but the recovery percentage was 82%

[Cilus]

instead of formatting, do a quick format. A hard disk is divided in to millions of blocks of same size, say 512 byte and all the data are divided into small blocks of 512 byte and placed in the HDD. In some specific location (specified by OS), a multilevel index is kept to access the data blocks quickly.
So theoretically if you just delete the Index, then all the data will be un-accessible as OS does not have track for data blocks. Quick-format will only delete the index, rather than the whole data.
So do a quick formatting and then use any recovery software. The chance will be increased a lot.

[Zangetsu]

Well the windows 7 os was not even formatting the drive....it refused......(hanged a lot)
even the DOS format didn't worked.....
so i finally tried partition wizard & to my surprise it formatted the drive nicely...now i can access the drive but lost the data.....
they say: to get some...to loose some.....

Originally Posted by tejaslok

use Stellar data recovery soft they are the best in that line, i used it to recover data from FAT32 and even used it for NTFS and they worked like charm. but the recovery percentage was 82%

is it the best recovery tool.....
i used 3yrs back PC inspector...& it did worked @ dat time..but now i dont knw which tool is good.....

[himadri_sm]

Use Stellar Phoenix data recovery software.....i once recovered almost 100gb of data from a formatted HDD.

[Piyush]

Originally Posted by Cilus

instead of formatting, do a quick format. A hard disk is divided in to millions of blocks of same size, say 512 byte and all the data are divided into small blocks of 512 byte and placed in the HDD. In some specific location (specified by OS), a multilevel index is kept to access the data blocks quickly.
So theoretically if you just delete the Index, then all the data will be un-accessible as OS does not have track for data blocks. Quick-format will only delete the index, rather than the whole data.
So do a quick formatting and then use any recovery software. The chance will be increased a lot.

but i once read un a article that quick formatting is bad
it creates the bad sectors in the disk if it not the NTFS file system
but i dunno how much is it correct

[Neuron]

@ KaranTh85

Use Pandora Recovery.You will be able to recover atleast 60% of lost data.

Originally Posted by piyush120290

but i once read un a article that quick formatting is bad
it creates the bad sectors in the disk if it not the NTFS file system
but i dunno how much is it correct

AFAIK thats not true.Quick format won't create any bad sectors,but it won't
mask any bad sectors that are already present unlike a normal format.

[Zangetsu]

@Neuron: ok..i will try dat too...thanx

[Faun]

Did you quick format ? If yes then your data is safe (99% recovery).
Else, best of luck.

[himadri_sm]

Originally Posted by himadri_sm

Use Stellar Phoenix data recovery software.....i once recovered almost 100gb of data from a formatted HDD.

this still holds true....just try this software..

[PraKs]

^^

Stellar Phoenix data recovery Free or *ahem* version ?

[himadri_sm]

Originally Posted by PraKs

^^

Stellar Phoenix data recovery Free or *ahem* version ?

"cough" "cough"

[Bailifei]

if the hard drive is not physically damaged, the chances of recovering data is big.
u can download this free data recovery software to see whether it can get some of your data back.

[silicon_fusion]

1 more thing Zangetsu , i am not sure what happen to ur hdd but it looks like ur partition table is corrupted (donot know how it happen by simply falling ).so try to recover ur partition table once and might be this will solve ur problem.

[rajnusker]

Use GetBackData.

[nipunmaster]

you can recover data from a quick formatted drive easily by using Recuva from piriform. Its a freeware. You cannot get 100% of all files, but there are chances that you can get the files you want.

Another software which I have tried is DiskGenius. With it i was able to recover data from a formatted usb drive. You can try from here:
Download DiskGenius - Disk recovery software