Recover Format 400GB External Hardive

[dwn]

I accidentally formatted my 400Gb Toshiba HD with 65Gb of backup
Eudora's email, WordPerfect, PDF, Video and some audio. I am
more interested to recover all my pictures, Eudora and WordPerfect
email/documents.

First tried Easeus, will recover 1GB and I have to buy the software for total
recovery. Than tried Garly, Stellar Phoenix, Setup, diskdigger and none are any
good. A few other will recovery some but unsatisfactory. The two really good
ones are recuva and PC Inspector. Both recuva and PC Inspector will recover
pictures. I like to recover complete Eudora and Wordperfect folders as these
consist many backup versions of email and documents since the 90's.

Any advice and suggestion freeware that will recover a 400GB exteranl HD?
Thanks a million

 

[Mike S]

I accidentally formatted my 400Gb Toshiba HD with 65Gb of backup
Eudora's email, WordPerfect, PDF, Video and some audio. I am
more interested to recover all my pictures, Eudora and WordPerfect
email/documents.

First tried Easeus, will recover 1GB and I have to buy the software for total
recovery. Than tried Garly, Stellar Phoenix, Setup, diskdigger and none are any
good. A few other will recovery some but unsatisfactory. The two really good
ones are recuva and PC Inspector. Both recuva and PC Inspector will recover
pictures. I like to recover complete Eudora and Wordperfect folders as these
consist many backup versions of email and documents since the 90's.

Any advice and suggestion freeware that will recover a 400GB exteranl HD?
Thanks a million

Lucid?
http://www.backports.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6478100

 

[dwn]

Lucid?
http://www.backports.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=6478100

I presume the recovery software is "Testdisk". I have download both version.
Your advice: Should I run it on DOS (that would be CMD) or WinXP? I have been
running PC Inspector for almost two days, it recover over 5,000 plus "jpg",
many identical double or triple image. I would like to know more about Testdisk
before I stop PC Inspector and start Testdisk to recover my backup Eudora and
WordPerfect files.

Just to let you know I have come across Ubuntun many times but don't have
a clue what it is or what it does. I presume it's Unix and I have never use or
try it. Thanks again, I really appreciate it and anymore help or advice will be
deeply appreciate.

 

[Daave]

I accidentally formatted my 400Gb Toshiba HD with 65Gb of backup
Eudora's email, WordPerfect, PDF, Video and some audio. I am
more interested to recover all my pictures, Eudora and WordPerfect
email/documents.

First tried Easeus, will recover 1GB and I have to buy the software
for total recovery. Than tried Garly, Stellar Phoenix, Setup,
diskdigger and none are any good. A few other will recovery some but
unsatisfactory. The two really good ones are recuva and PC Inspector.
Both recuva and PC Inspector will recover pictures. I like to recover
complete Eudora and Wordperfect folders as these consist many backup
versions of email and documents since the 90's.

Any advice and suggestion freeware that will recover a 400GB exteranl
HD? Thanks a million

What do you mean by "accidentally formatted"? Explain exactly
*everything* you did, step by step, in as much detail as possible.

What do you mean by "tried"? Sounds like you visited their Web sites and
tried to learn what each is capable of doing. Is this what you mean?
(The word tried normally means you actually used the program!)

How valuable is this data to you? If the drive is truly formatted, it
might be necessary to have a professional recovery business look at. It
would cost thousands of dollars with no guarantee you would be able to
recover your erased data.

 

[dwn]

What do you mean by "accidentally formatted"? Explain exactly
*everything* you did, step by step, in as much detail as possible.

I upgrade a new HD from 40Gb to 160Gb (Dell D600 Latitude). The
new HD cannot be detected with Dell reinstallation CD. I tried everything
including BartPE and Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows and Partition magic
to detect and fdisk/format the HD. It was very late and in the process I
attached my external 400Gb to the laptop. It was real slow formatting in
DOS. Leaving the laptop I went to sleep.

The next morning I realized I had formatted the 400Gb HD and not the
160Gb HD, I cannot remember if I use Partition Magic or UBCD4Window,
to format the 400Gb external HD.

I had purchased the wrong HD and cannot be detected when boot with
the Dell reinstallation CD.

What do you mean by "tried"? Sounds like you visited their Web sites and
tried to learn what each is capable of doing. Is this what you mean?
(The word tried normally means you actually used the program!)

I installed several of the softwares, and they either won't run or I get too
much garbage. The only really good one is PC Inspector, but I can only recovery
images (JPG) files. But I like to recovery my Eudora, WordPerfect Zips folders.
These are my archives from day one. When I downsize, I destroyed everything and
saved over 60Gb on this Toshiba HD.

How valuable is this data to you? If the drive is truly formatted, it
might be necessary to have a professional recovery business look at. It
would cost thousands of dollars with no guarantee you would be able to
recover your erased data.

It's not the best of time for me to shell out anythingI can do without,
including professional to do the job. It has no commercial but sentimental
value. I believe the Testdisk will do the job and I need someone who is
experienced or have use it to guide me before I proceed.

Thanks again.

 

[Daave]

I upgrade a new HD from 40Gb to 160Gb (Dell D600 Latitude). The
new HD cannot be detected with Dell reinstallation CD. I tried
everything including BartPE and Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows and
Partition magic
to detect and fdisk/format the HD. It was very late and in the
process I attached my external 400Gb to the laptop. It was real slow
formatting in
DOS. Leaving the laptop I went to sleep.

The next morning I realized I had formatted the 400Gb HD and not the
160Gb HD, I cannot remember if I use Partition Magic or UBCD4Window,
to format the 400Gb external HD.

I had purchased the wrong HD and cannot be detected when boot with
the Dell reinstallation CD.


I installed several of the softwares, and they either won't run or I
get too much garbage. The only really good one is PC Inspector, but I
can only recovery images (JPG) files. But I like to recovery my
Eudora, WordPerfect Zips folders. These are my archives from day one.
When I downsize, I destroyed everything and saved over 60Gb on this
Toshiba HD.


It's not the best of time for me to shell out anythingI can do
without, including professional to do the job. It has no commercial
but sentimental value. I believe the Testdisk will do the job and I
need someone who is experienced or have use it to guide me before I
proceed.

Thanks again.

Wish I could help, but I can't. Good luck to you.

 

[mm]

What do you mean by "accidentally formatted"? Explain exactly
*everything* you did, step by step, in as much detail as possible.

What do you mean by "tried"? Sounds like you visited their Web sites and
tried to learn what each is capable of doing. Is this what you mean?
(The word tried normally means you actually used the program!)

Indeed, it means that. Good questions.

How valuable is this data to you? If the drive is truly formatted, it
might be necessary to have a professional recovery business look at. It
would cost thousands of dollars with no guarantee you would be able to
recover your erased data.

Maybe this only applies if the formatting done was a "quick format",
but I'm not sure about that:

I've been all over the web lately, looking at antivirus programs for
one thing, and I came across a utility, whose name I don't remember,
that said it would unformat at drive. Just google unformat
partition or unformat drive . It also undeleted files.
This might have been at sysinternals.com or at piriform.com or at an
antivirus site that also had other utilities.