How to Recover Formatted Files with Free Format Recovery

Amy Dennis

Apr 10, 2023 • Filed to: Recover Files • Proven solutions

Are you looking for a way to recover formatted data? Formatted files are hardly permanently lost: you can use formatted data recovery software to recover your lost files.

This article will guide you on using free formatted data recovery software to restore formatted data on your device. This guide also contains useful tips to recover permanently deleted data and answers to several frequently asked questions related to formatted data and recovery. You’ll also see why tools can recover “lost” data from disks and how to prevent lost data from being permanently destroyed.

Can I Recover Files After Formatting?

Yes, data recovery from formatted drives is possible — almost always possible. More often than not, deleted data can be recovered from your drive using formatted data recovery software: the underlying technology in storage devices (HDDs especially) makes the recovery of lost data by recovery software possible.

After formatting, data recovery is possible because deleted files aren’t initially destroyed but instead unlinked from your file system. Unlinked files do not have an identity and won’t show up in a conventional file manager; however, special recovery tools can delve deeper into your storage device, hunting down these so-called unlinked files for recovery purposes.

Note that the unlinking of files instead of outright deletion isn’t a fool-proof system: continuous usage of your disk after formatting/deleting a file can get the unlinked files overwritten since they’re dormant (without an identity) and awaiting newer data to replace them. So, it would be best if you stopped using a drive as soon as you delete an important file: continuous usage will make data recovery impossible as data in unlinked files will eventually get overwritten.

Finally, data recovery can be affected by the method you used to format your drive. Disk fast format has no impending danger; however, hard/full format outrightly overwrites unlinked files with zeros —making a recovery impossible.

The Best Format Recovery Software - Recoverit Data Recovery

Recoverit Data Recovery software is an effective format recovery program. It can handle all formatted problems, recover accidentally formatted files from any storage media, unformat all devices like computer/laptop hard drive, Mac, SD memory card, digital camera, USB flash drive, etc.

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Steps on How to Recover Formatted Files with Recoverit Data Recovery

Free download and install Recoverit Formatted Disk Recovery software on your computer. If your device got formatted, please connect it to the computer. Follow the next guide to perform formatted files recovery on Windows computer.

Step 1. Select the formatted disk-like computer hard disk drive or external device which detected on the computer, then click Start.

Step 2. The format recovery software will take for a while to deep scan the formatted device and restore your formatted files.

Step 3. At last, you can preview some recovered files like photos(PNG, JPG, GIF, BMP). Select your file and recover it back by clicking on the "Recover" button.

Note: You should get a safe storage device to save all recovered data files, or the files will get lost again.

Recoverit Data Recovery can easily help you restore all formatted files. The most powerful data recovery program also can help you recover deleted files from emptied recycle bin, computer hard drive, recover lost partitions, the files got virus-infected, and the computer system crashed. Download as below and try it for now.

Alternative Free Ways To Recover Permanently Deleted Files

1. Try Freeware Solutions

If you are budget-conscious, you can try Freeware solutions before picking premium tools — the freeware tool doesn’t meet your data recovery requirements. Talking about freeware recovery tools, let us take a look at TestDisk.

TestDisk (free, open-source data recovery tool)

TestDisk is a cross-platform, open-source data recovery tool; powerful and 100% free. TestDisk brings data recovery and bootable drive repair to Windows, Mac, and multiple Linux distros. Using TestDisk for data recovery could be intimidating at first —especially for users with no prior technical knowledge —as TestDisk’s interface isn’t graphical; you’ll have to type in command/use the arrow keys for navigating through the tool.

How To Recover Data From Formatted Drive With TestDisk:

Step 1. Log into your computer as administrator.
Step 2. Install TestDisk.
Step 3. Run a TestDisk command to fix or recover files from you file system.

Example commands include:

•     testdisk image.dd (working from a raw disk image)
•     testdisk image.E01 (Recovering files from an Encase EWF image)
•     testdisk 'image.???' (for Encase images split into several files)

For fixing filesystems not listed by TestDisk, use command: testdisk device, as in:

• Use testdisk /dev/loop0 or testdisk /dev/mapper/truecrypt0 to repair FAT32 or NTFS boot sector files from a TrueCrypt partition.   
• Use testdisk /dev/md0 (for filesystems on Linux RAID device)

2. Check Cloud Backup

If you have your local device synced with a cloud storage system such as OneDrive, your lost files might be saved on such cloud storage. You should check to confirm. Inadvertent loss of files is the major reason pushing more people to Cloud Storage these days: Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox, etc. If you haven’t used any of these Cloud storage services, maybe you should give one of them a try.

3. Data Recovery Service

If you need the data urgently, the recovery company can do the repair and recovery work on a rush basis, meaning the firm's technicians will work 24/7, handing off the device and data at shift changes. This way, it's worked on until the project is done, and you have your data back quickly. This kind of service is expensive, however, and it still may take more time than you'd expect.

The Bottom Line

Recovering formatted data from hard drives is possible with data recovery software: These tools, as we’ve seen, are capable of finding “lost” files in a storage device by using special techniques. The “finding” of these “lost” files on hard disk drives, for example, is possible because files aren’t destroyed but unlinked from the file system and replaced when the need arises —a good reason why you should try not to use the same hard drive where you lost important files.

We’ve seen a handful of formatted data recovery tools in this article; however, judging by their features and capabilities, Wondershare Recoverit is the best tool for recovering lost/formatted data.

Knowledge Base

What is Formatting and How it Works?

When a drive is said to be formatted, it means that it has been reset to a file system. NTFS, exFAT, and FAT32 are examples of well-known file systems. There art two main ways to format a drive: Quick format, and Full format. Quick format changes/refreshes the your file system without destroying the data contained in it. However, a Full format will destroy the data contained in you drive.

Is it Possible to Recover Files From a Formatted SD Card?

Recovering data from your formatted SD card depends on:

• The method used for formatting;
• Whether you’ve saved data on it after formatting.

If you hard-formatted your SD card, you might never be able to recover its data; however, a fast format wouldn’t clear your data permanently.
If you accidentally formatted an SD card, don’t fret: instead, try not to save data to it —as doing so reduces the amount of lost data that could be recovered from it.

What Types of Drives Can Be Recovered?

Can data from your Hard Disk Drives be recovered? Yes, with ease, and SD Cards, too, can be repaired. However, SSD (Solid State Drives) tend to be troublesome when it comes to data recovery as SSDs use trimming technology to wipe deleted data.

Can You Undo a Format?

Undoing a format is beyond the capabilities of the convectional file manager: its business is to format your drive as soon as you confirm your action, not undo the action. However, you could use third-party data recovery tools such as Wondershare Recoverit to get back most of your lost data —depending on the method you used to format your drive.