Formatting can cause data loss, but it may not be the permanent data loss. That is to say, there is still a chance of data recovery as long as you take action at once. In this article, we will show you 5 easy and vital steps in this situation.
My previous article “5 Tricks to Prevent Accidental or Improper Disk Formatting” has introduced ways to avoid mistaken disk formatting. However, in some degree, such mistakes are difficult to avoid. Hence, if you unfortunately format the wrong drive, you will need to attempt data recovery, such as to recover PST files. Now, in the followings, we will share you 5 simple steps to successfully recover drive data after accidental formatting.
1. Stop Writing to Drive
First of all, as soon as you discover accidental formatting a drive, you have to stop writing data to the drive immediately. Any new data being written to the drive is able to permanently overwrite the lost data. Therefore, if you keep using the disk, the lost data will be irretrievable forever.
2. Ensure System/Data Drive
Subsequently, you need proceed to determine the usage of the suffering drive, if it is a system booting or data drive. As for system drive, it stores the files required for booting and operating system. If it is a data drive, it only stores the program data as well as user data.
3. Make Image for Drive
After that, you should make an image of the drive. It refers to make a copy of the drive data onto another hard drive. This step can retain the original data. With it, even though the later data recovery fails, you still have one more opportunity to attempt recovery. It can increase the chances of successful recovery.
4. Start Data Recovery
Next, you can continue to perform data recovery. In today’s market, there is a lot of data recovery software available for recovery after accidental file deletion and unintentional disk formatting. But when you choose software, you should beware of the ones from unknown sources, which will cause further damage to your disk.
5. Verify Recovered Data
Even though there are so many DIY recovery tools, you have to accept a fact that some data may still be irretrievable. Therefore, after data recovery, you should go on to verify the recovered data, checking if data has been recovered properly. If it doesn’t, you can ask for relevant professionals for help.
Author Introduction:
Shirley Zhang is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including mdf recovery and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com
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