How Do I Recover Files from Formatted Hard Drive？

Quick Guide: How to Recover a Formatted Hard Drive

• Choose the partition. Launch EaseUS formatted data recovery software after the installation. 
• Select wanted files. After the scan process, you can click "Filter" to filter a specific file type to quickly find wanted files.
• Recover files to a secure location...

Update: EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard has released the new version, in which the user interface greatly improved. Refer to the relevant user guide in the below part.

Why Do You Format a Hard Drive in Windows 10/8/7?

Format commands are typically run to prepare a new logical drive for use - enabling the installation of an operating system, programs, and user data. The format command has been around for a long time, formerly there were stand-alone DOS format programs before being integrated into Windows.

When you format a disk, the operating system erases all bookkeeping information on the disk, tests the disk to make sure all sectors are reliable, marks bad sectors, and creates internal address tables that will be used later to locate information. In a word, you need to format a disk before you can use it. 

In fact, hard disk formatting does not occur only on a new drive. it happens all the time in our daily computer life. Some instances:

• The hard drive itself develops problems: long-term use of a drive can cause the drive to become slow, inaccessible, crash a lot, etc.
• File system requirements: different operating systems require different file systems, so perhaps you need to convert NTFS to FAT or vice versa.
• Human errors: You just hit the wrong button and accidentally formatted the drive.

Part 1. How to Recover Data from a Formatted Hard Drive

All the actions above would completely erase data from the hard drive. What if the data is unintentionally lost by formatting? Is it possible to recover data from a formatted hard drive? Yes, as long as you find a reliable hard drive recovery program.

For your information, formatting a disk does not erase the real data. All the erased data doesn't disappear from the hard drive until fresh data is written to the space, which is marked as “delete”. If you accidentally or intentionally format a drive in Windows Explorer, Windows Disk Management, or Command Prompt DiskPart before creating a backup, do not panic. EaseUS data recovery software will help you out.

With the constant data recovery research and development, EaseUS data recovery software has been helping worldwide users with deleted, formatted, and inaccessible data recovery for over 10 years now. It's known to be the top-notch data recovery program, in terms of ease of use, deep scan speed, 99%+ data recovery success rate, and quick customer support.

To recover formatted hard drive data with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, follow the three-step guide below:

Note: To guarantee a high data recovery chance, install EaseUS data recovery software on another disk instead of the formatted disk. 

Step 1. Choose the formatted hard drive 

Choose the hard drive partition which you've accidentally formatted and click "Scan".

Step 2. Select wanted files

After the scanning process, you can click "Filter" to filter a specific file type to quickly find wanted files. Then use "Other Lost Files" or "Files Lost Original Name", "Tags", etc. in the left pane to locate your files.

Step 3. Recover files to a secure location

Select the data that you wish to recover and click "Recover". Choose a new location to store the files and click "OK".

[Easy & Fast] How to Recover Deleted Files from Laptop/PC Windows 10/8/7

After deleting a file, you can first recover deleted files from Recycle Bin. If the lost files are not in the Recycle Bin, you can use EaseUS data recovery software to recover permanently deleted files from laptop or PC with simple clicks.

Part 2. How to Restore Lost/Deleted Hard Drive Partitions

If you delete the hard drive partition itself, you can get back the whole partition with a partition recovery program called EaseUS Partition Recovery. With it, you can recover deleted or lost partitions. What's more, it supports all kinds of partitions including FAT, NTFS, Ext2, and Ext3 volumes in Windows.

To recover a lost or deleted hard drive partition (the whole partition) with EaseUS Partition Recovery, follow these steps:

 

Step 1: Run EaseUS Partition Recovery on your PC.

Select the disk or device where you lost partition(s), click "Scan" to continue.

Step 2: Wait for the scanning process to complete.

Let the program scan the selected disk and find the lost partition(s).

Step 3: Preview and restore the lost partition(s).

Double-click on the partition which is marked as "Lost" with "Good" recoverability.

Preview the content of the lost partition. Click "OK" and click "Proceed" to start restoring the lost partition.

Step 4: Click "Recover Now" to finish the partition recovery process.

Note: If the program warns you that there is a conflict, back up the listed partition with essential data to an external hard drive first. Then execute the final operation to restore your lost partition.

How to Ensure a 100% Data Recovery on a Formatted Hard Drive (Bonus Tip)

As clearly explained before, formatting only clears data on the address tables, and data only disappears when you write new data to the marked space. So, stop using the hard drive to store new data, and that's the key to use software to recover as much data as possible after format.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is capable and powerful in retrieving lost data but with certain conditions. The sooner you perform the recovery, the higher chance you have to get back lost data. Compared with other recovery methods, what's the 100% working way to protect data? Apparently, a regular hard drive backup.

Making a backup of data can be easy, like the “copy and paste” method. But for large hard drive backups, perform it automatically and smartly. Choose EaseUS free backup software to create a hard drive backup. It's easy, fast, and convenient.

Step 1. To back up an entire hard disk or simply its several partitions, the best backup plan is "Disk/Partition". Choose this backup mode and let's begin.

Step 2. On the popup window, choose the hard drive or partition(s) you're going to back up. A check symbol  appears after you clicked the mouse.

Step 3. Click the "Browse..." button in the "Destination" area to choose a backup location. Here, you can choose any location that is available to you, such as the local hard disk, folders, Network drive, NAS device or Cloud storage, including GoogleDrive, DropBox and OneDrive. You can explore all the connected drive by clicking the  icon in front of each directory.

Step 4. Now edit your disk backup image by adding a "Plan name" and "Description" to it.

Do not forget the advanced backup plans in "  Backup options", where you can compress the backup image, encrypt the backup for privacy protection and even enable a sector by sector backup.

At the same time, you can turn on the "Schedule" in order to create a hard disk/partition backup on a regular basis like daily, weekly, monthly or upon an event according to the schedule set on your own. 

And the "Image-reserve strategy" lets you manage the increasingly growing backup images economically, you can preserve the backups in a setup time or quantity.

Step 5. Not all the customizable hard disk/partition backup solutions are necessary but try to make full use of the necessary ones. Finally, click "Proceed" to start at once.

For safety, disconnect the physical storage device you used as a backup drive after the backup process is over.

With a real-time backup at hand, you can restore data at any time when it's lost. And most importantly, you're guaranteed with a 100% recovery rate to recover data from backup. Try to keep a good habit of doing backup for important working documents, photos, videos, and music, to achieve a risk-free digital life.

Conclusion

To recover files from a formatted hard drive: download the best hard drive data recovery software - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard; select the drive and click Scan; choose wanted files and click Recover.

To restore lost hard drive partition: download EaseUS Partition Recovery; select the disk or device where you lost partition(s), click "Scan" to continue; double-click on the partition which is marked as "Lost" with "Good" recoverability; Click "Recover Now" to finish the partition recovery process.

How to Recover Formatted Hard Drive FAQs

If you have other questions, read on and you might just find an answer to your questions.

1. How to recover a formatted hard drive on Mac?

To recover a formatted hard drive on Mac:

Step 1. Select the disk location (it can be an internal HDD/SSD or a removable storage device) where you lost data and files. Then, click the "Scan" button.

Step 2. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Mac will immediately scan your selected disk volume and display the scan results on the left pane.

Step 3. In the scan results, select the file(s) to recover and click the "Recover Now" button to get them back.

2. How to recover data from a formatted hard disk in Windows 10?

If you accidentally formatted a hard disk with the important data on it, then you can use data recovery software to restore hard drive data after formatting it.

3. Can a hard drive be recovered after formatting?

Yes, as long as you find a reliable hard drive recovery program. For your information, formatting a disk does not erase the real data. All the erased data doesn't disappear from the hard drive until fresh data is written to space, where marks as deleted. Therefore, you can retrieve data from a partition after formatting.

4. Is it possible to recover files from a formatted SD card?

Recovering data from a formatted SD card is just as straightforward as recovering formatted internal hard drives. All you need to do is open EaseUS data recovery software and select the SD card to scan. Then, you are able to restore SD card files after formatting it.