Recover data/movies from formatted HD

[bomberman]

Hi Peeps

Can someone please confirm if its possible to recover a couple of movies from a SATA HD that has been formatted in Vista and had windows Vista reinstalled around 3 months ago. The capacity of the HD is 250gig with just 25 gig remaining now after reinstalling most of my stuff.

Also in order to recover the files do I need to purchase another HD and run the software from the new HD noting that I have tons of stuff on the reformatted drive that I don't want to loose.

Finally the software I've seen recommended on here is free to download but you have to purchase and as I only have one use of it at present can anyone recommend any shareware?

The movies are around 6 - 8 gig each and are in avi format.

Thanks

B

[evilsatan]

You will be lucky to get them back in tact. I assume they are home movies rather than a movie you can rent and rip? As that will be a lot less hassle.

There are plenty of data recovery apps, GetDataBack is a very good one and can normally be found in the usual places. That is your best bet but chances are with such large files they may be damaged if recoverable at all.

You should run it from a separate HDD or even a USB drive (there is a portable version of GetDataBack). You will need to boot to a miniXP or similar to launch the portable app though.

[bomberman]

Hi evilsatan

The movies are of my little ones first Xmas and I remember when I tried to back the files Windows refused to copy the data as it was to large??????

Sourcing software is not my specialty hence asking for shareware, however as you mentioned it might not be possible anyway much to my horror.......

If the file is damaged in places can I still recover anything?

I've had a look for a new HD and have seen a couple of deals on Scan's today specials and am considering trying it with the right software. The issue being is that the software companies state that their software can recovery everything etc.

A friend lost some photos and paid a couple of hundred pounds to (Boots, Jessops or similar company) hence seeing if I can do it myself.

Thanks for your reply

B

[JonEp]

If they are there this will get it back and it FREE.

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

[evilsatan]

The problem is you have now used 90% of the HDD, unless you are very lucky and the videos reside on the remaining 10% of sectors then you may find the data is incomplete if recoverable. Hopefully you have not defragged your drive since the data was overwritten.

Let us know how it goes mate, those data recovery services will just use the same type of software so don't bother.

[Spennyboy]

As Evilsatan has said, the more you use a drive the less chance you have to recover anything - unfortunately your chances of getting anything back thats not broke or corupt is very slim.

Your backup issue you had with files being to large were probably due to you trying to copy them to a FAT32 formatted hard drive which has a 4GB single file limit. You need to format the drive in NTFS to save larger files.

[bomberman]

Hi Peeps

Unfortunately I was unable to recovery anything using JonEp link, a few files were recovered (not the ones I wanted) but thought I would try to see if it works but the files were not recognized despite being in .mov format.

The files I originally wanted had been overwritten and were not recoverable, the software confirmed the files that had overwritten the original files but clearly displayed the name of the files I wanted so gives an indication that part of the files was there.

Thanks anyway peeps

Just one final question, I have other movies which are greater that 5 gig and Windows states that the file is too large to copy/move onto a USB drive, does anyone have any ideas please?

The motto of this story is always to check and back-up all of your data

B

[Spennyboy]

Just one final question, I have other movies which are greater that 5 gig and Windows states that the file is too large to copy/move onto a USB drive, does anyone have any ideas please?

B

I already answered that in my previous post. Re: FAT32.

[bomberman]

Spennyboy

USB drive already formatted, can I reformat using Vista to NTFS

Thanks

[casio]

if you have any other drives that are still fat32 that you want to convert to ntfs without destroying all the data you can using a command line conver them non destructivly i wouldnt do this on your main drive while you're trying to recover files you can do this by opening a command prompt and typing
convert D: /fs:ntfs this would convert the d drive to ntfs but you can change the drive letter to which ever you're wanting to convert to the ntfs format.

-although from reading this thread I honestly wouldnt hold out much hope m8 the files that are recovarable are generally small ones that havent been written over on the drive and with you using 90% of the space that data would be long gone, if you have anything on your computer that you cant lose back them up to another drive or burn them to dvd, I bought a 1.5tb usb drive from maplin thats used for photo's, documents, family videos etc

[Spennyboy]

if you have any other drives that are still fat32 that you want to convert to ntfs without destroying all the data you can using a command line conver them non destructivly i wouldnt do this on your main drive while you're trying to recover files you can do this by opening a command prompt and typing
convert D: /fs:ntfs this would convert the d drive to ntfs but you can change the drive letter to which ever you're wanting to convert to the ntfs format.

Was just about to post that, very handy bit of info I didnt know myself till recently.

[bomberman]

if you have any other drives that are still fat32 that you want to convert to ntfs without destroying all the data you can using a command line conver them non destructivly i wouldnt do this on your main drive while you're trying to recover files you can do this by opening a command prompt and typing
convert D: /fs:ntfs this would convert the d drive to ntfs but you can change the drive letter to which ever you're wanting to convert to the ntfs format.

-although from reading this thread I honestly wouldnt hold out much hope m8 the files that are recovarable are generally small ones that havent been written over on the drive and with you using 90% of the space that data would be long gone, if you have anything on your computer that you cant lose back them up to another drive or burn them to dvd, I bought a 1.5tb usb drive from maplin thats used for photo's, documents, family videos etc

Thanks Casio, i'll try this when I buy a new HD

B

[unclex]

Get a copy of Encase 6.1 - google it.

[ahjackman]

thanks your a life saver,been trying for weeks i hope this will recover them thanks again smallbug