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This definitely shouldn't have happened the way it did...but it somehow did. Ironically it occurred while attempting to backup my old external HDD to my new one. Long story short Windows somehow managed to perform a quick format of my old HDD. It should not have been so easy while I was tired and distracted, to do this. I should have been prompted multiple times with warnings before being digitally raped.

Anyways, I have been trying to work with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, but almost all the way through recovery I notice it's recovering them in a raw format (2TB of generic file names). So I just said f*** it, and stopped the process.

What can I do now (program, method, etc.)? I know I can recover the data in a raw format, but I certainly am not capable of discerning what these files are, and renaming them properly!

Suggestions?! Advice?! Please help...somebody?! Anybody?!

I would sooo greatly appreciate it if somebody can get me on the road to restoring all of my data (with file names intact).

I've used Recuva once before to try and recover some files I accidentally deleted off my C: drive. Wasn't a quick format like your case, but from my memory, thing worked fast and well enough, and did the job.
Apart from this one case, don't have any experience with recoveries.

Yeah I've used Recuva before, for restoring deleted recycle bin files, but it didn't really work all that great from my experience with it. It did restore some files I needed it to though. I don't think it's gonna do what I need done in this case however. Thanks for the reply and recommendation though.

Unfortunately the only other thing that I can come up with is using dd to create a bitwise copy of the disk, mount the image as read-only (first two steps are optional, since well, just mount the external hdd as read-only), then use ntfsprogs to scan and undelete. This would be on linux though.

Yeah right now I'm using Windows 8. There should be some app that will do what I need done, which EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard claims to do. It's just that the files are being recovered in a raw format with generic names. There must be some way do do this, outside of paying hundreds of dollars for somebody else to do it. I've just never dealt with a situation quite like this before. This is awful. Nearly 2TB of data! Almost all my data!

If you haven't touched the disk at all since the quick format then there is hope to recover the MFT mirror from the NTFS disk using TestDisc. Here is a tutorial for the usage of the tool.

codestation wrote:If you haven't touched the disk at all since the quick format then there is hope to recover the MFT mirror from the NTFS disk using TestDisc. Here is a tutorial for the usage of the tool.

I'm guessing that interrupting the EaseUS recovery attempt counts? I think I effed up big.

EDIT:

I haven't attempted any writing to the formatted disk, if that helps the situation. I just began reading from it and writing to another disk. Is there hope? And thanks by the way.

what happens when something gets emptied from recycle bin is all the pointers get deleted but the actual data remains to be overwritten later, i don't know if that's the case with reformat but if yo haven't written anything then i say is possible you'd be able to recover it

MadZiontist wrote:I haven't attempted any writing to the formatted disk, if that helps the situation. I just began reading from it and writing to another disk. Is there hope? And thanks by the way.

Such tools usually don't write to the disk for obvious reasons, you should be good to go.

grief3r wrote:what happens when something gets emptied from recycle bin is all the pointers get deleted but the actual data remains to be overwritten later, i don't know if that's the case with reformat but if yo haven't written anything then i say is possible you'd be able to recover it

Same thing happens with a quick reformat.

Xian Nox wrote:

MadZiontist wrote:I haven't attempted any writing to the formatted disk, if that helps the situation. I just began reading from it and writing to another disk. Is there hope? And thanks by the way.

Such tools usually don't write to the disk for obvious reasons, you should be good to go.

grief3r wrote:what happens when something gets emptied from recycle bin is all the pointers get deleted but the actual data remains to be overwritten later, i don't know if that's the case with reformat but if yo haven't written anything then i say is possible you'd be able to recover it

Same thing happens with a quick reformat.

Yeah the more as I thought about it, the more I figured I'd be ok, as long as I handle the recovery process correctly. I really just panicked lol, and did need some confirmation and pointing in the right direction. Scanning my drive right now still. 2TB takes a LONG time to scan. It's gonna be a nightmare dealing with my new 4TB drive, when it comes to things like full malware scans, defragmenting, etc.. Thanks everybody for your feedback. I'll report up success...hopefully...soon.