I removed a 40GB laptop hard drive about 7–8 years ago and haven't used it since. Before removing it, I formatted it around three times during Windows installations. I recently remembered that it may contain old photos I'd like to recover. If the formats were quick and the drive wasn't heavily overwritten afterward, is there still a realistic chance of getting the pictures back?
4 Answers
For an easier first attempt, a basic recovery program such as Recuva may be worth trying. PhotoRec is generally more thorough, but it's less user-friendly and usually won't preserve the original names. Keep your expectations modest, but any recovered files would be a bonus.
The chances are low, but not necessarily zero. A quick format usually replaces the filesystem information rather than immediately erasing every sector. However, Windows installations can overwrite parts of the drive, and doing that multiple times makes recovery much less likely. It costs nothing to try, though.
If Windows was actually installed onto that drive after the formats, some of the old sectors were probably overwritten. Three installation cycles make complete recovery very unlikely, but photos stored in sectors that were never reused could still turn up. Recovery software is the only practical way to know.
Don't connect the drive in a way that could write to it. Ideally, make a complete image of the drive first and perform recovery on that image. Tools such as ddrescue, TestDisk, and PhotoRec can help; PhotoRec scans the raw sectors and may recover image files, but the original filenames and folder structure may be lost. Save recovered files to a different drive.
Thanks, I'll try creating an image first and then scan it rather than working directly on the original drive.