Can I recover photos from a hard drive formatted and used for years?

A quick format generally doesn’t overwrite every sector immediately, so recovery can sometimes work when a drive is left untouched. However, installing an operating system, adding programs, and using the laptop for nearly two years likely wrote over much of the old content. A full format would make the situation even worse, but even without one, the later usage is the main problem.

If you want to attempt this yourself, don’t run recovery software directly against the only copy. First connect the drive to another computer using a suitable adapter, create a full clone or image onto a different drive, and perform scans on the clone. Tools with deep-scan or file-carving features may find remnants, but never save recovered files back onto the source drive.

If the files are extremely valuable, stop powering on the drive and speak with a reputable data-recovery company. They can make a sector-by-sector image and work from that instead of risking the original. Recovery may be expensive and there’s no guarantee, so ask for an evaluation and a price estimate first.

The odds are unfortunately very low. Formatting removes or replaces the file system information, and continued use can overwrite the old data. Since the laptop was used for another 18 months, many files were probably overwritten, partially overwritten, or fragmented. You might recover scraps or thumbnails, but complete photos and especially videos are much less likely.