Hard Drive Recovery Advice

[AndreaJayne]

So, I was quickly formatting some USB drives and my frazzled brain somehow allowed me to run a quick format on my second hard drive.  Full of all my files....

Is there a nifty way to recover from a quick format?  I'm currently doing a deep scan on the drive (recuva) and fingers crossed I get things back.

[Bound Whore]

Googling "recover from a quick format" will give you lots of solutions, for instance

https://www.easeus.com/resource/quick-fo...overy.html

EaseUS is a provider of file and disk related tools I have heard of and used before on occasion, they seem to be quite reliable, but I am not up to date on their track record.

It's important to note that you need to stop using that drive immediately of course to avoid overwriting any data.
Also, if you recover your data, you will need to restore it to a different drive, since otherwise you'll also risk overwriting some data, since information will not just be restored "in place" like when restoring files from the recycling bin.

Which I guess is a good a time as any to invest into a 4-5 TB external USB hard drive for around $100-120 to keep a copy of your cherished files.

Keep 👏 backups 👏 of 👏 files 👏 you 👏 would 👏 hate 👏 to 👏 lose!

[Like Ra]

Keep 👏 backups 👏 of 👏 files 👏 you 👏 would 👏 hate 👏 to 👏 lose!

Amen!

[Pseudo_Sissy]

My goto is Linux and tool Testdisk (can be live USB - useful if this happens to your internal drive, and you're not sure OS won't leave it alone and not overwrite the data).
It's not user-friendly at all, though, and tbh not that capable, but it can recover most of the files from deleting or quick formatting in my experience.

[Like Ra]

My goto is Linux

It's not user-friendly at all

😂
(I'm a Linuxoid too)

[Pseudo_Sissy]

My goto is Linux

It's not user-friendly at all

😂
(I'm a Linuxoid too)

The Testdisk is what I was calling non-user-friendly. It's a command line utility with very non-intuitive interface. It's my goto because it's easily installable from repositories of default install of most distros.
I would call 2023 experience of live Linux (Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, ...) relatively user friendly (as far as fresh operating system experience can get).

[Like Ra]

I would call 2023 experience of live Linux (Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, ...) relatively user friendly

Yeah, second that. I use Ubuntu everywhere.

[Zooy]

I would call 2023 experience of live Linux (Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, ...) relatively user friendly

Yeah, second that. I use Ubuntu everywhere.

Personally I have a MacBook Pro, but I retrained it a bit to be more Linux-like. In the past I used Linux a lot and before that NeXTstep. The advantage of MacOS used in a linux way is that one can use the backup facilities of apple, which are quite decent.
I have always stayed away from Windows. It seems that if you don't like Putin, that is very wise  😇.
My experience is that if MS wants you to do things in a certain way it is nearly impossible to do it differently, while if Apple wants you to do things a certain way, you just have to dig a bit deeper to change things, because in principle deep down there is a Unix.
It is only lately, saying because of security, that they have been messing up a few things. One example is that I did not manage to install gdb, so I have to run that at the linux computers at my institute. There all big computers run linux of course, but I am not allowed to touch the OS there. On the other hand: if I have a request the systems people always take me serious and do what I ask for.

[Like Ra]

My experience is that if MS wants you to do things in a certain way it is nearly impossible to do it differently, while if Apple wants you to do things a certain way, you just have to dig a bit deeper to change things, because in principle deep down there is a Unix.

Mmmm.... Nowadays you can use UNIX under Windows (WSL), but Apple will still make you do things Apple-only way. Just try to exchange files between iFone apps using USB and a non-Apple box. There is nothing more stupidly stubborn, than Apple.... Sorry, Apple-fetishists.... Apple is one of a VERY few things, that drive me nuts. See the Apple thread here...

[Anne]

I had good results with Testdisk as well, you'll need to read some documentation first and it takes a while to do it's thing but it can recover a lot of things. If you have done a quick format and not written anything new to the drive yet it will probably recover everything.