Disaster Happened :(

[ma_t14]

I managed to lose all my music  

I bought a new microsd card and was trying to format it to fat32 using a 3rd party application and somehow I did the format for the external hd instead. I felt like the world collapsed for a moment  

I haven't written anything since then on the hard drive so there probably is some hope in recovering a portion of the files.

I would like to ask, if anyone experienced anything similar, what software (free/paid) they would suggest for recovery. I already tried Recuva but it doesn't seem to be very efficient. It detected around 6000 of the 20000+ files contained on the disk and could only recover less than half of that. I am using Easeus Data Recovery Wizard atm and it seems more promising.

Help please!

p/s
Had no backup of anything. Let that be a lesson, I guess.

[Bee-liever]

I have used WiseRecovery with good success rate

It does depend on if it was a quick or full format.

[ma_t14]

I have used WiseRecovery with good success rate

Will give it a try, thanks

[redwing]

Sorry to hear that. I'm sure you will get a full list of recommended apps by googling. But with whatever app, do not recover the files back to your HDD. You should use another HDD for the recovery, otherwise you will overwrite them. Then you might want to try free apps, with good recommendations, first to see if that's enough.

[mrad]

I removed my post with it pointing to paid for software (my bad). However, with a topic such as file recovery, I find paid for is superior to free alternatives. However, I PM'ed that particular software instead. I've used it for 10 years, helping many people, and it has been extremely thorough at data recovery in more cases than I can remember. Over time, I lab tested with free alternatives, the results were as expected - below par (dummy files etc.). But, yeah, do test if you have the time. If not, and you can, and you prefer company backed integrity, then get the tried and tested workhorse that I sent.

Good luck.

[ma_t14]

Sorry to hear that. I'm sure you will get a full list of recommended apps by googling. But with whatever app, do not recover the files back to your HDD. You should use another HDD for the recovery, otherwise you will overwrite them. Then you might want to try free apps, with good recommendations, first to see if that's enough.

Yeah, I know, I will probably use another external for recovery, thank you. Well, googling didn't help much in distinguishing which products are better that's why I'm asking here where some people might have first hand experience.

I removed my post with it pointing to paid for software (my bad). However, with a topic such as file recovery, I find paid for is superior to free alternatives. However, I PM'ed that particular software instead. I've used it for 10 years, helping many people, and it has been extremely thorough at data recovery in more cases than I can remember. Over time, I lab tested with free alternatives, the results were as expected - below par (dummy files etc.). But, yeah, do test if you have the time. If not, and you can, and you prefer company backed integrity, then get the tried and tested workhorse that I sent.

Good luck.

Thanks, was actually looking at that particular software and given your recommendation I  might give it a try.

[ma_t14]

Just writing to say that I managed to get all my music back using Easeus Data Recovery. Thanks to everyone that tried to help. Regular backups from now on for me

[psychoadept]

Just writing to say that I managed to get all my music back using Easeus Data Recovery. Thanks to everyone that tried to help. Regular backups from now on for me

Yay!

[redwing]

Great news!
So can you tell us about what apps failed to do that job in case you tried some others? That would be very useful info.

[lnminente]

Cool! That's great Ma_t14
Hope they are not corrupted and as soon as you can do a backup in another drive (Y)

[ma_t14]

Great news!
So can you tell us about what apps failed to do that job in case you tried some others? That would be very useful info.

I tried Recuva originally, from Piriform. This software seems to have a very good reputation among the freewares but it didn't manage to recover almost anything. This must have something to do with the drive being formatted from NTFS to FAT32, I don't know. Next I used the pro version of Easeus Data Recovery which worked fine and managed to recover everything except some old portable software I think, no big deal since all my videos/images/music are here now. Glad this one worked since each recovery process took around 9 hours (for a 1 terra HD).

Deep scanning was used in all cases.

Cool! That's great Ma_t14
Hope they are not corrupted and as soon as you can do a backup in another drive (Y)

Everything is fine, already did  


So long story short, as long as you don't write anything on the disk after it was formatted (quick format) you should be able to recover all your data.

[Xyzzy]

I've used free photorec for that purpose with success.
If recovers a number of different multimedia formats.

You may want to run mp3diags on your files to confirm they are indeed OK. Having such tool in MB would be nice by the way

[redwing]

So long story short, as long as you don't write anything on the disk after it was formatted (quick format) you should be able to recover all your data.

Sounds like you got one more reason not to back up Thanks for the detailed info!

[ma_t14]

I've used free photorec for that purpose with success.
If recovers a number of different multimedia formats.

You may want to run mp3diags on your files to confirm they are indeed OK. Having such tool in MB would be nice by the way

I read another thread by user "wedmiston" about photrec, where it renamed the recovered music files with random names. An advantage Easeus had for me, as I said, is that it recovered the files in their original filenames and folder structure.

Good idea about mp3diags, will make sure to scan everything. Thanks

Sounds like you got one more reason not to back up Thanks for the detailed info!