I was using Command Prompt to format a USB stick and accidentally formatted my secondary hard drive instead. I didn't use a quick format, so I'm worried I've lost all my files. I've tried recovery tools like CuteRecovery, Disk Drill, and Recuva for the last day, but I haven't had any luck recovering my data. Is there anything else I can do, or is it hopeless at this point?
3 Answers
Just so you know, Disk Drill has a good reputation for recovery, but don’t try to recover files to the same drive you formatted—you might mess things up even more.
If you really didn’t add the /Q option for a quick format, then all your data is probably lost because the full format wipes everything clean. It's a bummer, but I don’t think anything can be done now.
Unfortunately, since you didn't perform a quick format, your entire drive was fully formatted, and it sounds like the data has been overwritten. There’s pretty much no chance of recovery from that, sorry to say. I have a data recovery shop, so I see this a lot.
Yeah, that's a tough break. I’ve been a PC technician for 25 years, and I agree, if the data is gone, it’s likely gone for good.
I didn’t even attempt that! I know better than to do that.