Data Recovery from a Formatted Hard Drive

[CelticStar]

Can anyone recommend a good company who specialises in recovering data from a hard drive that has been formatted and then had the operating system and software re-installed? It needs to be someone who deals nationally as there is no-one who specialises in this local to me.

Thanks for any help given.

 

[IanE]

If you have re-installed the operating system you probably won't get all your data back as you will have over written sectors of the drive. You may be able to get data back from the as yet unused sectors of the drive even though it has been formatted, but it's pot luck depending on how fragmented the drive was before you reformatted it. If it's quite a big drive that was fairly full you've got a better chance as there will be a large area of disk that just had data. I have a rig with software that could do this for you. Contact me via my website estm.co.uk if you want to pursue this.

Ian
estm - Information Systems for Business

 

[Jay-UK]

Can anyone recommend a good company who specialises in recovering data from a hard drive that has been formatted and then had the operating system and software re-installed? It needs to be someone who deals nationally as there is no-one who specialises in this local to me.

Thanks for any help given.

You can do this yourself if you have the drive [software based] Or can give it to any of the data recovery specialist

here is a few companies
http://www.datatrack-labs.co.uk/


Software
http://www.datarecoveryuk.co.uk/software/windows/partition-recovery.aspx

software has demo version which will show you what can be recovered

But alot of caveats - it will depend on where the data sits on the drive, how fragmented it was, whether a low level format was performed [not a biggy in majority of cases]

Hope this helps

 

[stugster]

We offer this as a service, but there's no guarantee we'll get all (if any) of the data you want back.

 

[CelticStar]

Thanks all. We are aware of the provisos as to what can/cannot be recovered - it is not our computer but belongs to a customer who has some knowledge of computers and who did the formatting themselves but then brought it to us when they realised they hadn't backed up a folder belonging to their other half!

We are going to have a look at all the options and will update this thread later on.

Thank you again for all your replies.

 

[Matt1959]

We offer this as a service, but there's no guarantee we'll get all (if any) of the data you want back.

To OP, I used the guy above (Stugster) and he pulled back 1000's of images on a HD that others had said was irretrievable. Good price, based in Scotland but I got the discs back within days so not a problem dealing long distance!

 

[That Guy]

I have used an old version of this http://www.runtime.org/ an it worked very well. Only a few bits that it couldn't recover.

Best bet would be to plug the formatted drive into another computer as a slave and use the above program.

 

[CelticStar]

Just wanted to say my OH used the Geeksnerds software (that Jay-UK linked to) last night and managed to retrieve all the 'lost' data. So we have a very happy customer who is no longer headed to Relate and the divorce courts.

Thanks again to everyone who gave advice and to Jay-UK in particular.

 

[rhampshire06]

I've used a couple of different pieces of software to get data back, things like recover my data (original name I know) If youve lost photos etc this software is good for it. Plus you can try it before you buy

 

[RBS]

Around month ago I formatted my HDD, installed back Windows, all software etc, then realised I didnt back up bookmarks before formatting. Got some recovery software, scanned and found even some very old files and recovered them, but none of them worked, all corrupted.

So, looks like if you have written data on that HDD after formatting, no chance getting it back.

It was called GetDataBack for NTFS v3.03.17

 

[Exoware]

It really depends physically exactly where the data you want is located on the disk and whether the operating system reinstall overwrote it. In simple terms, it's a matter of luck. If you're not one for defragmenting your disk, then there's actually more chance of recovering your data if you format it and reinstall it.

It's a complicated thing to explain, but in short - there's only one way to find out!

 

[jolie - lithuania]

hi all i can recommend really good company abroad - UAB „Mano duomenys“ in Lithuania - the prices are quite low, comparing with UK. And work professionals. Search in google, you can also see the pricelist and references; it will take just a little more time to send your drive to Lithuania than recover your data at UK. If are any questions, write me at skype pls

 

[leemason]

Try Vogon/Ontrack: http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.co.uk/. I know several companies who have used these people and they are very good.