My brother recorded photos and videos from my wedding using an older camera that saves to DVD-RW. When the disc was later inserted into a computer, it was accidentally formatted. I'm hoping to recover the files and make backup copies, but I'm not very technical and have never used Linux. Is there a way to determine whether the disc received a quick format or a full format, and are there any beginner-friendly recovery methods or services worth trying?
3 Answers
The recovery example you found appears to involve a disc that wasn’t actually formatted, so the situation may be different. You could boot a Linux live environment from an empty USB drive without installing Linux, then use tools such as TestDisk to make an image of the disc and PhotoRec to search that image for photos and videos. Since the process can be confusing and DVD-RW media is fragile, it may be better to have someone experienced create the disc image first.
DVD-RW recovery is difficult, and many formatting operations make the original data inaccessible. I wouldn’t write anything else to the disc, since additional use could reduce the chance of recovery. A professional data-recovery service may be the safest option if the wedding footage is especially important.
Recovery may be possible if the disc only received a quick format, because some of the old data might still remain. If it was completely formatted or erased, the files are probably gone. Unfortunately, there usually isn’t a reliable way to tell which type of formatting happened after the fact.
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