Accidentally Cleaned a Drive and Lost Important Data – Need Help!
Asked by
DataMystic77
Hey everyone! I made a huge blunder by accidentally cleaning a partition on a secondary SSD that had important data on it. After the cleaning, I attempted a quick format to NTFS and assigned it a drive letter, but now I can't find my data. I've started using TestDisk 7.3, but it doesn't seem to be picking up any partition info, likely due to the recent quick format. Has anyone faced a similar situation? What data recovery software do you recommend, whether it's free or paid? Any help would be really appreciated! Thanks!
Answers
I’ve had good success with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard. It’s user-friendly and can recover from situations like yours. Definitely worth trying!
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Honestly, it’s not uncommon to mess up like that—data safety is always a top priority. You need to make a solid backup strategy after this, but for now, focus on data recovery.
DataMystic77: I totally agree. I'm worried about approaching the data owner with the bad news since this could be a bigger issue if the SSD is failing.
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Since it’s an SSD, be mindful that TRIM can complicate recovery efforts. Not writing anything doesn’t help much. Have you thought about pulling data from a backup or reversing any changes made before this happened?
DatalessWonder: Yeah, this is true. This is why backups are crucial! I planned to set one up after moving my OS data, but of course, things went sideways.
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Have you allowed TestDisk to run a deep search? I’ve managed to recover NTFS partitions that way. Also, it's a good idea to create a raw image of the drive first, just in case anything goes wrong during recovery. That way you don’t lose your initial state.
DiskResQ: Will the deep search work even after a quick format? I ended up cleaning my entire drive instead of just one partition—very frustrating!
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Create a RAW image of your SSD as soon as possible! Your data is likely still there unless the drive has reset. The sooner you act, the better your chances.
DiskResQ: I plan to do this after the deep scan with TestDisk is done. I found HDDRawCopy2.5Portable, hope it works for me!
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TechSavvyDude: Are you talking about this one? https://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizardpro/. I couldn't find anything on "data recovery pro" though, is that a specific product?