Can recuva recover files from a previous windows installation?

Recuva
1

My friend recently gave me his old 250gb hd for me to use. When he gave it to me, I reformatted the drive right away, leaving no trace of any of his info. It?s been a year now, and I am about to do a search through the My documents folder for a file I accidentally deleted last week.

My question is: Will recuva find files from the previously installed OS which contained the files of my friend when I do this search?

2

Not if you do a normal scan. If you do a deep scan than my experience is that even after a low-level format then files from a previous install are found. Well, some of them are. Whether you would find any old files depends on the use of the disk. If he was a light user and you are the Prince of Downloads then it's quite possible that your data has overwritten everything that existed before, and vice-versa.