Urgent Help Needed: Recovering Lost Data After Accidentally Formatting a Hard Drive

The formatting changed the partition structure, which is why you see that reduced size. There’s a chance you can scan the drive and recover some information, but you might want to inform your friend as a precaution. A professional data recovery service would be the best bet for a better outcome. Other tools like GetDataBack might help, but be prepared for some potential costs if the data is really important to your friend.

You’ve got a few options to try and recover the lost files. Software like Recuva is often recommended, but keep in mind recovery isn’t guaranteed, especially if any part of the drive was overwritten. HDDs generally have better recovery success rates than SSDs, but this doesn't mean your friend's files are safe. If any sections were overwritten during the formatting process, those files might be gone for good. So it’s a tricky situation!

First things first, stop using that hard drive altogether! Don't try to format it or write any new files on it. It sounds like the recovery process might have messed up the partition, but there’s a chance the data is still there. Be sure to run DiskGenius in read-only mode and save any recovered files to another drive, not back onto the one in question. If the space is an issue, you may need to get another external drive just for the recovery. If things don't look good, consider a professional recovery service. Take it slow and be careful!