Hi All. We had a mishap where a 1TB external HDD was formatted. We purchased Recuva to restore the data. There was enough room on the drive to recover it to. The scan found 822k files to recover and we did the step-by-step through the Recuva interface to restore the files.
Firstly, Recuva did NOT restore the folder structure by default (who/why wouldn’t anyone want the structure restored), so now we have 822k files in the root of the drive to sort through. But also, having tried to open a few of the files recovered, very few of them have been restored with all of their information, i.e. an MP3 file has it format/extension, file size, title, BUT not the play length, hence the file won’t open.
Is all of my data now gone because of this?
Firstly - You never ever recover data to the same drive that you are recovering from.
The data you are attempting to recover is in space that Windows has marked as being empty and available for new files - so what you are trying to recover is likely to get written there, overwriting what you are trying to recover in the first place and so making it impossible to recover.
Secondly - There is a special method you need to use to recover data from a drive that has been reformatted.
It is different from a recovery of deleted data.
Third - There is an option to attempt to restore the folder structure, but you do need to select that option, and it can only be done if Windows still has the folder structure information. See below.
So being practical here about what may be possible to you now:
By recovering to the same drive you may well have overwritten what you were trying to recover; in which case it is gone forever unless you have a backup.
(That’s why people make regular backups, accidents happen, and drives fail, If a drive fails altogether then no recovery can work on it).
There is only one way to find out now and that is to try again; this time using the method for recovering data from a reformatted drive and recovering to a different drive.
You say step-by-step above so I’m not sure if you already used this guide?
(If you did then it clearly tells you not to recover to the same drive).
You can find a step-by-step guide to using Recuva to recover from reformatted drives here, including attempting to recover the folder structure, there is even a link to a video showing someone deliderately formatting a drive and then recovering the data from it:
Good luck, but I’m afraid that by already recovering to the same drive you may well have overwritten a lot of, if not all of, what you were/are trying to recover.
Hi nukecad. Many thanks for responding so quickly. I understand the description you’ve replied with, but also have a couple of concerns. I know that it’s our fault that the drive was formatted in the first place, but we happily paid for data recovery software to hopefully recover the data. We actually develop user software, albeit for a different purpose, and based on your response, found that Recuva is very non-intuitive.
If, as you say, you ‘never ever’ recover data to the same drive, the interface shouldn’t allow you to choose the same drive to restore to.
Secondly, if there’s a ‘special method’ to recover formatted data as opposed to deleted data, there should be a radio button step in the UI asking which it is and present the user with the necessary steps/options for the correct process.
Third, and again from my original question, who or why wouldn’t someone want the folder structure restored. It should be restored by default, or at least prompted as an option in the steps through the UI.
All this is very basic step-by-step guiding users through a process. I hope these suggestions help Recuva in the future. Looks like we’ve lost all our data in this instance.
I agree that the Recuva UI is not very intuitive and could be more user friendly.
In it’s defence is was written some years ago, and in the expectation that it would be being used by those with a good technical knowledge who already knew the basics such as why not to recover to the same drive.
ie. It was written/developed as a technicians tool rather than being for a general user.
With the advent of Cloud Storage and SSD’s, and users generally becoming more aware of the need for backups, then the use for recovery software such as Recuva can only be in decline and it should once again become a specialist tool.
It’s several years since Recuva last had a function update (there was an update about 2 years ago but that was to do with the licencing system not any functions).
TBH the Free version of Recuva now does everything that the Paid for version will (except for recovery from virtual drives, which is pretty niche anyway).
I expect that it may/will even become Freeware only with no purchase option - Defraggler, another older Piriform software has already done that.
All in all I doubt very much that Recuva will be getting any future functional changes.
PS. Did you actually try the recovery from a reformatted drive method, just to see if any of your data might still be recoverable?