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SSD data recovery?

Lightning_Mike
By Lightning_Mike
in Storage Devices
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Hi!

 

The other day I made a rookie mistake and formatted an SSD without backing up what I was supposed to. Is there any way to recover the lost data? Now, I've seen data being recovered fairly easily from HDDs by fairly cheap software. Is there any way to do the same on an SSD?

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Was it a quick format? If so, have you written data to the drive since you formatted it?

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It seems like everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I formatted the thing and did a fresh Win10 install on it before I realized I forgot to transfer what I planned to. Is there any way to recover at least some of the data that used to be there?

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4 hours ago, Lightning_Mike said:

It seems like everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I formatted the thing and did a fresh Win10 install on it before I realized I forgot to transfer what I planned to. Is there any way to recover at least some of the data that used to be there?

If you've stopped using it then there is a chance some of the data may still be present. How much data was on the drive before it was formatted? 

 

3 hours ago, LWM723 said:

If you installed windows on it there is no way to recover anything.

No, not always. 

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5 hours ago, BondiBlue said:

If you've stopped using it then there is a chance some of the data may still be present. How much data was on the drive before it was formatted? 

There was ~90 gigs of stuff on it. I was only planning on saving some ~500MB of them.

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Is it a single drive with multiple partitions on it or a standalone drive without the running OS on it?

 

Normally, it is impossible to format a partition on which the OS is installed.

 

If you did not untick "quick format" before formatting, you might still be able to recover most of them if it's not yet overwritten. You can use softwares like Recuva, or Disk Drill to recover your data.

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1 hour ago, thekingofmonks said:

Is it a single drive with multiple partitions on it or a standalone drive without the running OS on it?

 

Normally, it is impossible to format a partition on which the OS is installed.

 

If you did not untick "quick format" before formatting, you might still be able to recover most of them if it's not yet overwritten. You can use softwares like Recuva, or Disk Drill to recover your data.

It was a drive with multiple partitions (I formatted one of them: The former C:\). I used a bootable stick to install Windows 10 and formatted the partition from the Windows Setup. I'm not sure whether that one uses Quick Format or not

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Just now, Lightning_Mike said:

It was a drive with multiple partitions (I formatted one of them: The former C:\). I used a bootable stick to install Windows 10 and formatted the partition from the Windows Setup. I'm not sure whether that one uses Quick Format or not

Oof. Well, now you have a drive without Windows.

 

It's probably still recoverable, though. Assuming you formatted it without thinking much about it, you probably didn't untick "quick format". (Essentially a non quick format would replace all your data with 0 's, therefore making them 100% unrecoverable)

 

First method (bad method but only option if you have no other PC) is to simply Install Windows on one of the partitions you know is either empty or contains data that can be sacrificed. Then, on that newly installed OS, use a recovery software to retrieve your data.

 

Second method (safest) is to connect your SSD to another PC, then use softwares on that PC to recover your files.

 

Note that some recovery softwares would need to recreate the lost files in a separate folder, so it's quite a pain in the ass.

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1 hour ago, thekingofmonks said:

Oof. Well, now you have a drive without Windows.

 

It's probably still recoverable, though. Assuming you formatted it without thinking much about it, you probably didn't untick "quick format". (Essentially a non quick format would replace all your data with 0 's, therefore making them 100% unrecoverable)

Well, I kind of went on with finishing the installation before I realized I forgot to transfer the neatly packaged folder of stuff I had placed on my desktop. I don't recall seeing a "quick format" setting in the installer, though. I formatted and installed the OS in one go

Quote

Second method (safest) is to connect your SSD to another PC, then use softwares on that PC to recover your files.

Well, I guess it's time for some laptop surgery then.

Quote

Note that some recovery softwares would need to recreate the lost files in a separate folder, so it's quite a pain in the ass.

That's ok, I have enough space for it.

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