Format Hard Drive / Restore Operating System

There are cases when a hard drive will be inaccessible and Windows will ask if you want to format the drive. When a format occurs, unless specific commands are given, the data will be effectively "lost" to the end user. This doesn't mean that the data is gone for good, since technically the data remains until the specific sectors containing the data are overwritten with new data. Once the sectors are overwritten, the data is usually unrecoverable at that point. If you have accidentally formatted your hard drive, DO NOT utilize the drive any further, not even for web browsing (since cached web page data may overwrite data you are looking to recover).

Another common occurance is doing a Operating System Restore. This is different than a System Restore in Windows, where a specified restore point is utilized, and no user data is lost. An operating system restore, is basically a new installation of the operating system, which in turn, formats the drive and renders the user's data inaccessible. This also requires that you do not use the computer after the restore has taken place, since recoverable data may be overwritten.

If you have accidentally formatted your hard drive, or reinstalled the operating system and have lost your data, contact a data recovery professional immediately. We can help get your data back.