Can Recuva recover files lost from reformatting?

[hummingbird]

Dear all,

 

First of all I would like to applaud the team for creating Recuva and releasing it for free. I am sure many users have benefited from such a great and handy software. The fact that Recuva has recovered files deleted 1 year ago on my PC is a testament to its effectiveness.

 

My problem is as such. On the 11th of April I reformatted my laptop. The method of reformat was without a CD, it was just done using the laptop alone. The file lost is a folder of pictures (500MB).

 

After reformat, the laptop has been in use everyday, but only a handful of new programmes were install. The usage was for heavy internet surfing and running of shares and stocks programmes.

 

Recuva has not managed to recover my folder of pictures. Can anyone advise? These pictures are highly important to me as they are from my family vacation.

 

Thanks a lot and kudos to the Recuva team!

[hazelnut]

Did you follow the instructions here?

 

http://docs.piriform.com/recuva/using-recu...formatted-disks

 

have you tried a deep scan?

 

http://docs.piriform.com/recuva/using-recu...eep-scan-option

 

Good luck

[Augeas]

Apart from running a deep scan there's not a lot you can do. The chances of any recovery now are slim.

[hummingbird]

Did you follow the instructions here?

 

http://docs.piriform.com/recuva/using-recu...formatted-disks

 

have you tried a deep scan?

 

http://docs.piriform.com/recuva/using-recu...eep-scan-option

 

Good luck

 

Dear Hazelnut, thanks very much for your prompt reply. Yes I have done them, and something interesting came up.

 

I have found much of the pictures I am looking for. I can identify them by their file name. They have shown up in Recuva upon a deep scan, however it says "no preview available" and when I recover them, the files are physically recovered. I can click on the files, but the pictures cannot be displayed. The file size is substantial(2MB) and it is reflected as having taken up space on my laptop.

 

When I try to open the said file, it says "Photo gallery cant open this picture or video. The file format is not supported, or you don't have the latest update to photo gallery"

 

I think we are very close to recovering the files. Anyone please advise freely, help is very much appreciated!

 

Regardless of the outcome, I would be making a financial contribution to Recuva and its team.

 

Regards.

[Augeas]

Are you recovering to the same laptop you're scanning? If so, you should be recovering to a separate partition/drive/disk, etc.

[hummingbird]

Are you recovering to the same laptop you're scanning? If so, you should be recovering to a separate partition/drive/disk, etc.

 

Yes I am recovering to a different disk drive.

 

When the files show up on the Recuva programme, its location is stated as " C:\?\ "

 

The files can be recovered to to speak, but the pictures cannot be view.

 

Please advise freely, your help is greatly appreciated!

[Augeas]

No miracle fixes, unfortunately. If you have found the files using a normal scan then perhaps the files have been overwritten and that's what you have recovered (you can see this, and what's in the header, in the Recuva run).

 

This question has been raised several times before in the forum so a search might be of help. I can't remember what resolution, if any, there was.

[Robbie]

One other suggestion: did you use a digital camera when taking the photographs? If so, did you use a memory card and if you did have you tried connecting the camera to your computer and running Recuva in both normal and Deep Scan on that "drive"? It's a long shot but if you have used a digital camera it may work.