Accidentaly Deleted My External Hard Drive

[nam-thip]

This afternoon for reasons unknown i accidently deleted my western digital hard drive and have now lost all my movies, pictures, word documents etc etc etc.

At the time i was on my laptop which runs on windows 7.

Any chance of recovering the deleted files?

[monty]

Yes, as long as you did not write other stuff on the disk, everything should be recoverable.

Look through the following:

http://www.canadiancontent.net/tech/downlo...ive_Rescue.html

http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/system/fwdatarecovery.HTML

[monkfish]

Yes I used this software to recover files from a reformatted HD

http://www.r-tt.com/file_undelete/#Products

Edit: There are some free products as pointed out in the post above if just a simple delete.

You will need to restore to another Hard Disk though.

Edited April 18, 2010 by monkfish

[Tywais]

Recuva is one of the best freeware versions.

[Spoonman]

How did you delete a HDD, did you format it or ??

[davee58]

Just curious:

1 - How exactly did you delete it?

(What do you mean "Delete")

(What exact actions did you take)

2 - What is the drives capacity, and how much was used ?

(how many GB? )

I suggest that you do NOTHING until you have investigated all possibilities, and are certain that you are following the correct procedure..

[nam-thip]

Just curious:

1 - How exactly did you delete it?

(What do you mean "Delete")

(What exact actions did you take)

2 - What is the drives capacity, and how much was used ?

(how many GB? )

I suggest that you do NOTHING until you have investigated all possibilities, and are certain that you are following the correct procedure..

It’s a WD Smartware external hard drive with a 300 GB storage capacity.

Product name: My Passport Essential

Drive size: 297GB

How did I delete the drive or disc?

I went into settings which has a ‘drive erase’ facility and that’s what I hit.

Don’t ask me why I did that I have no explanation other than stupidity on my part.

How much storage was used of the 300 GB available?

Less than half.

[nam-thip]

we offer commercial data recovery services. You pay only if we recover can't be better :-)

Price is affordable is you can't find any other solution.

You can PM if interested.

Thanks, i'll bear that in mind if all else fails.

[welo]

Whatever you do, just don't write any new files to the drive until you recovered (unerased) your files. Any write operation might overwrite the 'erased' files and make recovery for the overwritten files impossible.

welo

[A_Traveller]

If the delete was through the WD software, then would suggest using recuva as suggested before to see if it can 'see' the drive. Since a WD erase also kills passwords etc. [according to the user guide on the web] then it may be that this process is a custom one which might not use the default OS mechanism.

Remember to concentrate on the difficult to replace data first.

Regards

[welo]

If the delete was through the WD software, then would suggest using recuva as suggested before to see if it can 'see' the drive. Since a WD erase also kills passwords etc. [according to the user guide on the web] then it may be that this process is a custom one which might not use the default OS mechanism.

Yeah, have been reading something about the WD tools supporting encryption - hope OP didn't use that feature

welo

[nam-thip]

Thanks for replies so far.

I’ve just returned from a week up jungle escaping Songran in Pattaya so i'll now have a go at one or two of your suggestions and let you know what transpires.

[supashot]

Thanks for replies so far.

I’ve just returned from a week up jungle escaping Songran in Pattaya so i'll now have a go at one or two of your suggestions and let you know what transpires.

Keep in mind that the more you "play" with tools the more the chances are reduced to recover. So many recovery softwares write instead of read only.

[nam-thip]

Update:

After downloading Recuva, disc doctor and a couple of other recovery programs i've failed to find any of the erased files, pictures, videos etc.

The only thing visible in these recovery programs is the previous windows XP files that i replaced with windows 7.

I did read on a forum that erased files from a WD Smartware H/D are not recoverable.

Edited April 22, 2010 by nam-thip

[cowman1]

Update:

After downloading Recuva, disc doctor and a couple of other recovery programs i've failed to find any of the erased files, pictures, videos etc.

The only thing visible in these recovery programs is the previous windows XP files that i replaced with windows 7.

I did read on a forum that erased files from a WD Smartware H/D are not recoverable.

Hi.

Just out of interest, how much did you pay for it? I am planning on buying one to conect to my wii and the cheapest I have found is around 2600 baht.

Thanks

[crev]

That's too bad. I use R-Linux Free Recovery before and it worked.

[CHdiver]

As you are in Pattaya, I would recommend you go to Watchara Computer Shop near Foodland (other side of the Road). They have some good Guys working there and they should be able to help you if its possible. Should not cost you too much there, but you may ask beforehand.

[Spoonman]

You will not find a Watchara PC shop across the road from Foodland, you will however find a shop called Wattana Computers.

[monkfish]

Here is link to the demo version R-Studio which is fully functional apart from it will only recover files up to 64kb

However Install it, scan your HD which could take 8 hours if you can see the files there's a good chance of recovery with the full version.

http://www.r-tt.com/file_undelete/Download.shtml

[nam-thip]

Update:

After downloading Recuva, disc doctor and a couple of other recovery programs i've failed to find any of the erased files, pictures, videos etc.

The only thing visible in these recovery programs is the previous windows XP files that i replaced with windows 7.

I did read on a forum that erased files from a WD Smartware H/D are not recoverable.

Hi.

Just out of interest, how much did you pay for it? I am planning on buying one to conect to my wii and the cheapest I have found is around 2600 baht.

Thanks

I bought it in mid-February 2010 from Tuckom in Pattaya and it cost me 3.190 baht