Retrieve deleted information from hard-drives
Written by AndyAr85 on 4:41 AM If you get to be a truly "fortunate" guy, like me, it's quite inevitable to get your hard drive formated. It can happen as a result of all sort of things, a bad hard drive, which is NOT your fault and probably you start cursing and getting angry on the company that made your hardware, or it can happen, this is my favorite part, due to your hazardous treatment or inadequate usage.
I really should create a disclaimer for those of you who will try this and won't understand it properly, so DON'T do this on your own unless you are sure on what you are about to do...(or it's not your computer...just kidding) . Also that this process of retrieving data from formatted hard-drives is never 100% sure(I'll explain why later on).
Let's start on the tools you really need on any attempt to fix something on your PC. This are in fact the minimum every one of you should have. Get this and master all it's contents and you'll never hire someone to fix any of your PC failure (this is actually my lose). You need a bootable CD/DVD/USB that contains it's own OS and a library of fixing programs. Why it's necessary to boot from it? you will ask me....it's because you don't want any of the processes that are lunched in windows to interfere with your work and using an OS from another media support will do just that. Of course if you have another computer to mount the "destroyed" hard-drive into will do the trick too, but for all the rest of you this is the easiest solution.
A few examples of bootable recovery disks: Hiren, Windows UBCD and a lot others, you just have to google for, but these two are more than enough. You can find them:
Hiren: http://www.hiren.info/
Win UBCD: http://www.ubcd4win.com/
Download, burn them on CD/DVD and boot. you should download the ultimate version but the older ones are as good. Mostly the difference is the virus definitions, but there can be also other stuff.
You should know there are two types of formatting: a quick format and a low level format. The difference?...a big one. If you are trying to get data back from a quick formatted drive, you just mite succeed. In the other case...you have to stop right now searching and reading any forums and documentation cause it's lost. Everything is lost. Why? Because when you make a quick format you only erase the HDD MBR(Master Boot Record)but the data even if you don't see it is still there, but a low level format means that the formating program fills the HDD sectors with logical zero(This is called Zero-Fill)
There is one problem with the area of data recovery software, Software companies know that a good recovery program is something that people will pay good money for. So most freeware and shareware programs comes with very basic functionality.
Ok, so you have a hard-drive(doesn't matter if you don't know the type of formatting, maybe it was a virus or an accident), but when you power your PC it won't boot or on other HDD you lost any data. The first thing you MUST do is DON'T WRITE ANYTHING ELSE ON THE HARD-DRIVE. Any data written above the lost one makes the lost data irretrievable.
If your HDD won't boot and you have the opportunity to transfer it to another computer and retrieve the important data by Explorer method this is the easiest way, but if you have a HDD with only one partition and can't do the transfer operation, this becomes more difficult.
In this case boot with one of the CD's mentioned before, let's say Hiren Boot Cd. You will get a menu and choose the option boot from CD. Now you get the Hiren Boot menu. Now the fun begins.
If you have deleted partitions by accident, do not create another partitions, just leave it blank. I'll tell you how to get them back other time.
There are several recovery programs included in Hiren pack such as Ontrack Easy Recovery, Winternals Disk Commander, Active Partition Recovery and Active Uneraser that will boot your system straight into DOS, then perform file recovery. There is an entire level in the boot menu that contains data recovery software, beside the ones mentioned before are Restoration, PC Inspector File Recovery, Drive Rescue, Free Undelete, Data Unerase Personal Edition and a lot more. Come to think about it I need an upgrade too....
The use of this programs is not difficult, you basically just have to point the HDD that you want to search data on and maybe the level of search, but you can do it with a quick search also. Now it depends on the program if it finds the files you need or not. If the file is found, great, you just recover it, or save it somewhere specific. That's the easiest way to do it, and the fastest. But ,you must know that not all recovery attempts get a 100% success . There is a chance that what you recovered to be damaged (the text, mp3 and other media type of files are affected, and a few others).
The thing is you have to be prepared that you have only a chance of recovering the original data you deleleted. Hope this helps you!
I really should create a disclaimer for those of you who will try this and won't understand it properly, so DON'T do this on your own unless you are sure on what you are about to do...(or it's not your computer...just kidding) . Also that this process of retrieving data from formatted hard-drives is never 100% sure(I'll explain why later on).
Let's start on the tools you really need on any attempt to fix something on your PC. This are in fact the minimum every one of you should have. Get this and master all it's contents and you'll never hire someone to fix any of your PC failure (this is actually my lose). You need a bootable CD/DVD/USB that contains it's own OS and a library of fixing programs. Why it's necessary to boot from it? you will ask me....it's because you don't want any of the processes that are lunched in windows to interfere with your work and using an OS from another media support will do just that. Of course if you have another computer to mount the "destroyed" hard-drive into will do the trick too, but for all the rest of you this is the easiest solution.
A few examples of bootable recovery disks: Hiren, Windows UBCD and a lot others, you just have to google for, but these two are more than enough. You can find them:
Hiren: http://www.hiren.info/
Win UBCD: http://www.ubcd4win.com/
Download, burn them on CD/DVD and boot. you should download the ultimate version but the older ones are as good. Mostly the difference is the virus definitions, but there can be also other stuff.
You should know there are two types of formatting: a quick format and a low level format. The difference?...a big one. If you are trying to get data back from a quick formatted drive, you just mite succeed. In the other case...you have to stop right now searching and reading any forums and documentation cause it's lost. Everything is lost. Why? Because when you make a quick format you only erase the HDD MBR(Master Boot Record)but the data even if you don't see it is still there, but a low level format means that the formating program fills the HDD sectors with logical zero(This is called Zero-Fill)
There is one problem with the area of data recovery software, Software companies know that a good recovery program is something that people will pay good money for. So most freeware and shareware programs comes with very basic functionality.
Ok, so you have a hard-drive(doesn't matter if you don't know the type of formatting, maybe it was a virus or an accident), but when you power your PC it won't boot or on other HDD you lost any data. The first thing you MUST do is DON'T WRITE ANYTHING ELSE ON THE HARD-DRIVE. Any data written above the lost one makes the lost data irretrievable.
If your HDD won't boot and you have the opportunity to transfer it to another computer and retrieve the important data by Explorer method this is the easiest way, but if you have a HDD with only one partition and can't do the transfer operation, this becomes more difficult.
In this case boot with one of the CD's mentioned before, let's say Hiren Boot Cd. You will get a menu and choose the option boot from CD. Now you get the Hiren Boot menu. Now the fun begins.
If you have deleted partitions by accident, do not create another partitions, just leave it blank. I'll tell you how to get them back other time.
There are several recovery programs included in Hiren pack such as Ontrack Easy Recovery, Winternals Disk Commander, Active Partition Recovery and Active Uneraser that will boot your system straight into DOS, then perform file recovery. There is an entire level in the boot menu that contains data recovery software, beside the ones mentioned before are Restoration, PC Inspector File Recovery, Drive Rescue, Free Undelete, Data Unerase Personal Edition and a lot more. Come to think about it I need an upgrade too....
The use of this programs is not difficult, you basically just have to point the HDD that you want to search data on and maybe the level of search, but you can do it with a quick search also. Now it depends on the program if it finds the files you need or not. If the file is found, great, you just recover it, or save it somewhere specific. That's the easiest way to do it, and the fastest. But ,you must know that not all recovery attempts get a 100% success . There is a chance that what you recovered to be damaged (the text, mp3 and other media type of files are affected, and a few others).
The thing is you have to be prepared that you have only a chance of recovering the original data you deleleted. Hope this helps you!
