Data recovery from an unformatted hard drive full of data
Is this the deleted data that you want, or is it the undeleted data on a drive that has lost it’s formatting and is now “RAW”?
If it’s the undeleted data that you are after then see:
The hard drive we want to recover doesn’t normally appear in “My Computer.” It only shows up in the “Disks” section under Windows Management. I want to recover the files on this hard drive without formatting, because these files are very important to me. Your software can’t find this hard drive, so it can’t do anything. Also, I purchased your software today, and I’m not happy with it. It doesn’t seem like it will be useful to me.
Well the post that I linked above does tell you that you don’t need to buy Recuva.
However Recuva does need to be able to see the drive, which means that you have to quick format it and then recover the non-deleted files.
I’ve always had success with it myself, but nothing can ever guaranteed with any recovery attempt.
Some other recovery softwares say they can recover from unformatted drives without formatting them first, but I’ve never had to buy/try one of them.
If the files are “very important” then you may want to consider a professional recovery service rather that trying to DIY. They are not cheap though.
Good luck which ever way you decide to go.
PS. It is not “my” software, I am not employed by Piriform, I am an experienced user who is trusted to moderate this forum.