The files were inadvertently quick formatted. I immediately downloaded Recuva and tried to restore. It found nothing on the first pass, but on a second deep pass it recovered five files; see attached, There is practically nothing in these files.
What to do? Running Win 11Pro. [image]
I think that is an SSD drive, is that correct?
If it is then you need to be aware that any file recovery from a SSD is nigh on impossible.
It can sometimes be achieved, but once a TRIM (and/or garbage collect) has been done then all you can usually get from a SSD is the file table entry for the most recent files.
However there may be a very slim chance of recovery here as this is an external drive, and because it was a reformat not a file delete.
Generally speaking most external SSDs do not have TRIM, as it’s a SATA/NVMe command and most drives are connected through USB. (However some USB connected SSDs have a built in controller that still issues TRIM).
The other point you need to be aware of is that for getting the non-deleted files back from a crashed and/or reformatted drive Recuva has to be used in a particular way that is a bit different than recovering deleted files.
There is a step-by-step guide here (and even a link to a video showing it done).
Again though, while I wish you the best of luck I’ll caution again that if this is an SSD like I suspect then if it’s been TRIMmed you may not be able to recover your files.