See what a drive looked like before formatting

[Daniel_BMS]

Does there exist any software that allows you to see the folder structure of a formatted hard drive before the format? In other words make the drive reappear as it was before the wipe. That way I can only recover content from the only folder that I need. Most software only brings up individual files regardless of where they came from.

[jagabo]

There are many "unformat" utilities. A format with Windows' format utility only overwrites the root directory and allocation tables -- much like erasing the table of contents in a book. Most of the subdirectories and files are still on the drive, intact. There's just aren't any pointers pointing to them. I don't keep up with what software does this but if you go with one of the big names you'll probably be alright. Look for software that doesn't write to the disk, only copies data from the disk to another.

Beware, a lot of spyware masquerades as undelete and unformat utilities.

In the mean time, don't write to the drive. Doing so risks overwriting old data that was on the drive, losing it forever.

[deadrats]

A format with Windows' format utility only overwrites the root directory and allocation tables -- much like erasing the table of contents in a book.

this isn't true anymore, starting with vista, windows actually does a zero write with a full format:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941961

if the drive was formatted with a full format on a vista or later pc then you are not getting anything back, in fact even a professional lab would have trouble getting data off of it.

[jagabo]

starting with vista, windows actually does a zero write with a full format:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941961

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that.

[Daniel_BMS]

I got my content back with Ultimate Restorer.