The cause · someone formatted it
Calls sound similar whether they come from Plymouth, Devon or Cornwall: someone clicked Format on the wrong disk. Usually it's the quick type, which only changes the index and leaves the files exactly where they were, mild compared with other kinds of data loss. A full format taken to its end is something completely different, and we'd rather tell you that on the phone than after a parcel has arrived in Bristol.
You will be talking to an engineer
0800 6890668
| The behaviour | What that points to | Where to start |
|---|---|---|
| Windows offered to format the disk, and you told it yes | A fresh, empty index sits over the old one | Leave it be — the files are still underneath |
| The drive opens with no data in it, and every byte shows as available | Only the listing changed; what it referenced did not move | Add nothing further to it |
| A full format run to the end | Since Vista, a full format writes a zero into each sector of the drive, and a zero contains no information | There is nothing to read |
| A full format stopped halfway | Whatever the zero pass never got to is intact | Halt it and cut the power |
| diskpart clean | Only removes the partition table, no more than that. The volumes underneath are left alone | Usually readable |
| diskpart clean all | Places zeros over every sector of the drive, the same effect as a full format allowed to complete | Nothing to be read |
| An SSD, quick-formatted | TRIM has run and the controller is now clearing out the cells by itself | Switch it off now |
Whatever is delivered is booked in using a unique reference (case number) on the date it arrives at the bench. The engineer will identify the actual fault at no charge. This gives a straightforward answer on what can be recovered from the drive and what cannot, plus one written quotation. There will be no further activity until you have read and accepted the quotation.
Was it a quick format, a full format, clean or clean all? And did it get to the end? This sets a hard limit on how much data can be read back, so an engineer establishes it before anyone discusses chances.
All of this happens on the image and never on the disk itself. Whatever remains of the original file system is recovered from underneath the new one and reassembled. If enough readable records survive, the files return to their correct folders with the same names and dates.
Where no structure survives, each file is recognised by the header bytes its type begins with and pulled off the image whole. Anything still pointing to a file restores its name.
Give yourself time to consider it. It costs you nothing. We list all of the files we recover for you before sending out an invoice, and we only ask for payment once you have authorised it. We also buy media specifically for your recovery and send it back to you, with the return postage paid by us. The case stays here on our bench until we have your confirmation that the files open properly on your own machine.
Put plainly: if only a quick format was performed, the prospects look good. If a full format finished, or clean all was entered into diskpart, there is nothing on that disk to recover: every sector was deliberately set to zero, and Windows has acted this way since Vista. Anyone claiming that a completed full format can be reversed should be asked how it would work.
There were two 2TB disks of the same model sitting in the same tower, and the format was applied to the one holding the family archive instead of the spare. A quick format creates a new index but does not touch the existing data, which is the only reason any of it survived. Not a single file had been added to the disk in the meantime, so the archive came out exactly as it went in.
Normally all of it. A quick format on a hard disk writes a new, empty index and leaves everything else as it is; the sectors themselves are not touched. Your files are exactly where you put them, under a catalogue that has stopped listing them. Add nothing to the disk and most folders come back with names and dates intact.
It can, but only where a full format ran to completion. Since Vista, every sector of the disk receives a zero during a full format. A quick format writes none. That single difference decides most of these jobs.
Shut the machine down. Do not put the disk back into use until an engineer has imaged it. Any file saved from now on is written over areas that were still recoverable.
No. When an SSD is quick formatted, TRIM usually runs straight after and the controller clears the freed blocks without intervention. Remove the power and ring. Of all the format jobs that reach this bench, this is the one where delay costs the most.
Diagnosis costs nothing. We give you a report listing which files can be read, which cannot, and what is needed to get them off. Do not connect the drive until then.