How to Recover Data from Factory Reset Laptops

“I have today restores my computer to factory default settings and have lost all my pictures, files etc. Any idea how I can retrieve them at all I have pictures I have had for years all installed on there. Any help much appreciated!”

A new Windows laptop is fast and quick in response. But over time, the accumulation of files, settings, and disk fragments will slow down computer performance, or even cause some major errors, such as blue screen and constant shutting down. In order to solve the problem, restoring the laptop to the state it came out of the factory can solve these mentioned problems easily and quickly. However, though restoring laptops to factory settings can help us solve some problems, it will lead to data loss if you didn’t make proper backups beforehand. What should we do if some important files are lost after factory reset? Is it possible to recover personal files after factory reset?

Can I Recover Personal Files After Factory Reset Laptop

Whether or not you can recover data from factory reset depends on how the factory resetting is done. There are two ways to handle the removal of data in both Windows 8 and Windows 10. In Windows 8, when you decide to remove files, Windows will give you the options of “thoroughly” remove your personal files and “quickly” remove your personal files. In Window 10, the options are “Just remove my files” and “Remove files and clean the drive”.The quick removal or the Just remove my files option, is quick but less secure if you plan to donate or recycle your computer. This option is similar to quick formatting. It just resets the filesystem and cleared the table address. Although inaccessible, the raw data are still there and can be recovered by using professional data recovery tools.

The quick removal or the Just remove my files option, is quick but less secure if you plan to donate or recycle your computer. This option is similar to quick formatting. It just resets the filesystem and cleared the table address. Although inaccessible, the raw data are still there and can be recovered by using professional data recovery tools. The thorough removal, on the other hand, writes random patterns to every sector of the drive, overwriting any existing data visible to the operating system. This process will provide enough security for typical scenarios but as a result consumes hours to complete. This is the option for you if you are disposing of highly confidential business and government data. A single pass overwriting will put most consumer level recovery software off. Even with ample funds and forensic tools, only fragments of data can be salvaged.

How to Recover Data from Factory Reset Laptop

Basically, resetting PC will completely remove all programs, applications, games, documents, pictures, music or movies from the device. But unless you specifically order to clean the drive, these lost data can be recovered with professional data recovery software. Here, H Data Recovery Software is recommended to recover personal data from factory reset laptop hard drives. H Data Recovery Software can also help you handle data loss situations like lost partitions, accidental deletions, emptied recycle bin and other more data lost situations.

After installing H Data Recovery Software, you will see the below window of the main interface. There are 6 data recovery modules and you can select a suitable module according to data loss situation.

Step 1. Install and Launch H Data Recovery Software and select “Formatted Hard Drive Accidentally” or “Universal Recovery”, which will deep scan all drives and partitions to the fullest extent, and try to locate every previously removed file.

Step 2. Select the partition where you want to recover files from. Click Next to start the scan process. It only takes few seconds!

Step 3. When scanning is done, you will be able to see all the files that can be recovered. Check the files you wish to recover and click next to start the recovering process.

Is there any way to recover data from formatted memory card?

Is there any way to recover data from formatted memory card? Is there any way to recover data from formatted memory card?

Yes, there is only one way to recover data from the formatted memory card if you have no backup. And whether you can recover files from the formatted memory card depends on which kind of format you use, and whether there is a data overwritten occurs on this formatted memory card. If you perform a full format on your device, don’t think about too much, there is no way for you to recover them.

If you perform a quick format, please keep calm. You have great chance to recover data from this formatted device. But please do not do not write new data to this formatted memory card anymore. And even if the data still stored on the memory card after formatting, if you write new data after that, you will lose part or all of the data depends on the overwritten rate. To put it simply, what you should do is to stop using this memory card, and then try to use the data recovery software immediately. If you recover in time, you can 100% get all your data back. To achieve a high success rate of data recovery, choose a piece of reliable and powerful data recovery software is necessary. What are the traits we should be looking for in good data recovery software?

The ability to recover from different devices, and various data loss situations. There are so many data loss causes, you need a powerful data recovery software to help you to recover in different situations. It should provide the method to recover deleted files from recycle bin and each hard drive partition, or from the formatted, crashed or lost partition. And it should also help you to recover the other medium, such as flash disk, SD card, external hard drive and other USB storage devices.

The software performance. The software should allow you to recover from both the entire disk and a selected location. It should allow you to recover various type of files and different file formats. Also, it should provide you the way to preview the files before finishing the recovery. Scan and recovery speed is also important but does not matter too much. The scan and recovery speed largely depend upon the size of your files.

For any storage device when data is formatted or deleted the data is located in the device but it does not have a pointer to it. Space is available to the user and you can use it the way you want. If you rewrite on the device then the data will be lost forever, but in case you want the data then you use Data recovery software. H data recovery software come with powerful capabilities and algorithm to trace deleted or formatted files from memory card.

Step 1. Free download H Data Recovery Software. Install and launch the software.

Step 2. Insert the memory card into a USB card adapter and plug your card adapter into your computer. Select the Flash Memory Recovery module by clicking it. The software will automatically detect all the flash memory cards currently connected to this computer. Choose your memory card and click Next.

Step 3. H Data Recovery will scan the memory card and try to find and reconstitute the all missing files. When the scan is complete, you will be able to see the list of all recoverable files. If you act quick enough after the format, the chance of a complete recovery is very high.

Step 4. Select all the files you want to restore, and click the Next button. Choose a directory that you want to restore these files to.

How to Recover Files from Formatted HDD

I was about to format my external USB but I formatted my whole E: drive (TOSHIBA 1TB 7200RPM 3.5”) which had all my data, important files, years of hard work. How do I recover it?

HDD (Hard Disk Drive) recovery is possible if the data is not physically destructed or wiped out. Normal deletion or disk formatting would only delete the pointers to these files. The data remanence, which is the cluster of magnetic domains representing 1s and 0s on the surface of HDD platter continues to exist even after the files have been deleted. This is the reason why HDD data recovery software is able to recover lost files from hard disk drives. That’s also why data security experts advise against simply formatting a hard disk drive before you dispose of your personal computers or storage devices.

Professional HDD data recovery software such as H Data Recovery Software allows you to locate and reconstitute missing data from your HDD with no pain. It offers the best solution to solve various data loss situations. You can recover files from emptied recycle bin, re-formatted hard drives, corrupted camera SD cards, deleted partitions…

How to Increase the Success Rate of HDD Recovery

Every data recovery specialist would recommend you to avoid writing new data into the storage device in the event of data loss. Overwriting includes using file shredding software to shred files; using drive cleaning software such as DBAN to wipe entire drives; overwriting by putting new data upon old file locations…File shredding software and drive cleaning software is designed with security in mind. The sole purpose is to eliminate the risk of security and privacy breach posed by unauthorized recovery.

It is high recommended that you begin the data recovery as soon as possible to avoid any potential overwriting. Do not attempt to re-partition the hard drive or to reinstall the operating system. Do not put new files to the partition you wish to recover or run programs like fdisk.

How to Recover Data from HDD 

Step 1. Launch H Data Recovery Software. There are 6 different data recovery modules, each designed to handle a different data loss scenario, such as deletion, format or partition crash. If you are not sure about the cause, you can choose the Universal Recovery module.

Step 2. H Data Recovery Software will then start the data scan. When it is done, all the files that have been deleted will be listed. Browse and preview the files and select those files you wish to recover.

Step 3. Choose a path to store the recovered files. Remember to save the files on another drive or partition to avoid data overwriting. It is important that you act fast when you attempt to recover deleted files in order to avoid newly created files overwriting the lost ones.

H Data Recovery Software is also capable of recovering data from Raw NTFS/FAT HDD, formatted digital camera SD cards, smartphone microSD cards, and formatted pen drives and solid state drives.

Can We Recover Files from Hard Drives Formatted Multiple Times?

How do I recover photos from memory card which was formatted three times? Does re-format a hard drive multiple times make any difference?

The biggest concern when disposing of old computers or other electronic devices is the personal or sensitive data doesn't get into the wrong hands. We've discussed how to safely and responsibly dispose of storage devices without raising potential privacy breach risks. But how about format the storage devices multiple times? Will it make the data recoverable? What if I accidentally formatted a hard drive twice and want to recover the files stored inside?

There are actually different types of formatting processes. In Windows operating systems, there are two kinds of format: quick format and full format. As indicated by their name, they differ in the amount of time needed to complete a formatting. However, there is more behind this seemingly obvious difference.

A quick format will only erase the file table from the filesystem. The operating system will not locate any files without their index so when you look at the hard drive you would not see any data and assume the drive is erased. In fact, the files are actually still there untouched and can be accessed again with the right tool. This is how software like H Data Recovery Software can recover data from formatted disks. Their special algorithm enables you to scan, locate and reconstruct the deleted files.

A Full format will write zero to every sector of the drive to overwrite old data. This write-zero process is also known as erasing. The exact amount of time required to complete the process depends on the capacity of the HDD. The larger the capacity the longer it will take. As a Full Format would wipe your drives clean, the data stored on them will become unrecoverable. This is very useful when you are disposing of or recycling your hard drives containing senstive or personal information.

How to Perform Different Format

1. In Windows Explorer

In Windows Explorer, right-click on the drive you wish to format and click Format... Option. Check the Quick format check box to perform a quick format of the select drive. Leave it unchecked to perform a full format instead.

2. In Command Prompt

You can also use the command format to execute the format, and choose to set the file systems along the way.

Please note that beginning in Windows Vista, by default the format drive: command equals to format drive: /p, which writes zeros to the whole disk once, unless you specifically use the quick format command format drive: /q. In Windows XP and earlier versions of Windows, the format command does not perform the basic drive sanitation. You can repeat the write zero process multiple times by adding a count to the command, for example, format d: /fs:NTFS /p:3 will zero-fill the D: drive 3 times and set the file system to NTFS .

In Conclusion

So, back to the question. Does formatting a drive multiple times make the data unrecoverable? It all depends on how you execute the format. If you quick format a hard drive, the number of repeated times does hardly matter. You can recover the lost data with software like H Data Recovery painlessly. If you perform a full format, even with one pass of zero-fill (overwrite with zero once), the data will be very likely unrecoverable. On the other hand, it is a good way to dispose of personal data.

Forbidden things before data recovery from a formatted hard disc

We usually to store a lot of file in PC. To advance the running speed of computer, we may format hard disk while cleaning files. And you have to recover data from a formatted hard disc. Here are six important things for you to notice before recovering, and some tricks about data restoration.

Six precautions before data recovery from a formatted disc

1 Do not reboot or turn off computer

Once things happened to computer, the primary idea lighting in our mind is reboot computer. Please remember, never reboot or turn off the computer after hard disk formatted. As new data will be type in, and have a bad effect of data recovery. So keep computer’s status until data restoration had fully completed.

2 Stop all programs running on the computer

If you continue use PC after hard disk formatted, like seeing Movie, surfing, the deleted files will be overwritten by the new one, and make data recovery incompletely. So stop all running after hard drive got formatted.

3 Do not disk check

You will be asked by system if you need a disk check after abnormal things happened to files. Do not disk check. As you may think disk check will help to scan the lost data, but the truth is disk check can only recover some catalog files which got damaged slightly. Disk check can not fix a complex catalog file caused by formatting. If you did a operation of disk check, you will have a badly losing of data.

4 Do not defragment files

After we deleted files, they haven’t completely deleted, just made a mark on them indicating that they were not existence, the deleted files are still resided in the old place. We can recover the data by using a data recovery software. But if you defragment files after formatting, the remained information left by deleted files will be completely erased, and you will never retrieve them.

5 Put the recovered data into a new hard disk

Do not put the recovered data in the old place where they resided former. Or it could lead to data recovery incomplete or error if data overwritten happens. Do remember put the recovered data to the other hard disk partitions.

6 Recover your data ASAP

You can do every effort to recover data but never do it blindly after hard disk formatted by accident. A lot of data recovery software are available on the market to recover data from a formatted hard drive, especially Hdata Recovery Software, which can retrieve losing data completely. Besides, Hdata Recovery Software owns senior engineers, you can seek help from them any time you want.

Means of data recovery from a formatted hard disk

Method one, using data backup. If you have a good habit of making data backup using USB drive or other external mobile storage device, then congratulations, you can use the backup directly to retrieve the losing data intact.

Method two, using cloud storage. If you have used cloud storage to restore the significant files before you formatted the hard disc, you can recover the data directly by registering your cloud account and finding out the restored files.

Method three, using data recovery software. If you don’t have any data backup or cloud storage, you can utilize a data recovery software to retrieve missing data caused by formatting. The you may encounter with data recovery incomplete or recovered data unreadable if you use a ordinary data recovery software. And that kind of thing will never happen to Hdata Recovery Software, a professional data recovery software with a pro-scanning kernel, which can scan and recover data safely and retrieve the losing data fully.

Method four, finding help from a professional data recovery engineer.If you don’t have 100% confidence in data restoration, you can seek help from a professional. Data recovery software all have its teams, particularly Hdata Recovery Software which having a group of senior engineer, who can offer help towards users around-the-clock for free.

How to recover data from a formatted USB disk

The USB disk, a mobile memory device, with features of lightweight and fast transmission speed, plays a critical role in our life and career. We need to clean the USB space once there isn’t enough storage available while saving or transporting files with large size. Generally, formatting is a common method used to clean the USB disk, which could make errors easily during operation and cause data loss.

How to recover data from a formatted USB disk becomes a major headache. Using data recovery software is the easiest and quickest way for restoration. And Hdata Recovery Software is the outstanding one, a green software with powerful data recovery ability, which could recover data loss from lots of situations like formatted hard disk, recycle bin, hard disk partition, etc besides USB disk.

Procedure of data recovery from a formatted USB by Hdata Recovery Software.

1. Plug the formatted USB disk into PC, with it’s icon could be displayed after selecting “computer-removable disk”.

2. Install Hdata Recovery Software and run the program. Choose “U-Disk & Memory Card Data Recovery” in the interface.

3. Select the formatted USB disk and click “scanning”. If the missing data has been found during scanning process, you could click “interrupt” to finish.

4. Click the file you want to restore, with it’s specific file contents as type, size, name, etc could be seen in the interface, then click “next”.

5. Click “browse” to select storage path for the recovered files. You can save the files on PC for avoiding overwritten. Then click “next”, just wait till it finished.

Tips: If the missing file hasn’t been found yet, you can use “Universal Recovery” mode to scan again.

What’s the actual meaning of low level formatting?

Low level formatting, so called physical format of hard disk, is a common treatment method for hard disk. Note that, the data will loss in full after low level formatting, and it is difficult to recover data from a formatted disk. So do not format you hard disk casually.

Why it is so difficult for data restoration from the formatted disk? What’s the actual meaning of low level formatting?

1 Resetting the section and rewriting checksum.

All the bytes will be set to zero in every section and meanwhile checksum of section will be reset to initial value after low level formatting, to correct some error causing by long use. For example, you can use low level formatting to repair checking error on disk.

2 Rewriting the identifying information.

The original low level formatting tool will rewrite the identifying information on every section and remain some track info while formatting the disk. But all these operations are aimed at old-fashioned disk, there is no need for the new one. It will cause damage, if we use the old tool on the latest disk, that’s why “low level formatting is dangerous”.

3 Check out sector reading or writing and replace the defect sectors.

The low level formatting tool will review every sector on the hard disk, and replace the defect sectors.

4 Renumber the whole physical sectors.

The low level formatting tool will assign parameters according to the record of P-list and sections, redistribute identifying info of physical section and hide the bad sector.

5 Renumber the track, and rewrite the related information.

The low level formatting tool will rewrite the servo information of every track and renumber it to prevent the hided bad track from user access.

6 Refusing operation of reading or writing.

Some disk have parameters for recording the low level formatting procedure, and it will refuse some reading or writing operation if the procedure was not finished correctly.

As the serious consequences, it is a dangerous thing of low level formatting. Except the professional, data recovery from the formatted disk is a tough task. There are some suggestions, according to the specialist in the team of Hdata Recovery Software:

1 Protecting is very important.

The success rate of data recovery depends on the intensity of damage, and no data recovery software can promise 100% data recovery. According to that, we should make data backup regularly or do some protections to the data, like avoiding of sudden cut in the using procedure or remaining the environment of data storage devices.

2 Solving the problem ASAP.

It is generally known that, we can retrieve the lost or damaged data, except the storage space they occupied has been written by the new data, so called overwritten. Once spotting data loss, the first thing you should do is stop using the computer, and search help from professional for data recovery.

3 Be careful about data recovery by yourself.

Some users would like to recover data by themselves, it will be OK if the data loss is a slight one. But a secondary damage of data may be aroused due to the false operation while data damaged badly.  

Could a formatted Hard Drive be recovered?

When I entered bromeo’s bedroom, I was badly shocked by the chaos. “Wow, I know you are a man, but I don’t know you are such a real man.” I joked, which immediately got his bitterly counterattack, “Yeah, I treated you as a woman till saw your computer.” 

Isn’t it true? I checked my PC at the first time when I went home, and was astonished by the utter confusion, all the files are so disordered placed in the disk. I have no choice but thoroughly defragmenting the disk. The computer looked in a orderly manner after transfer files among disks, re-install and disk formatted. And then, Some important files got missing as the former procedure.

What could I do? I had no idea. At that crucial moment, bromeo offered me a great advice, why not use Hdata Recovery Software, a professional data recover software, retrieve the lost data in a few minutes.

Step one, install the Software on the PC and run the program.

Step two, choose Hard Disk Formatted By Mistake in the interface to deeply scan the formatted disk. Pay attention, Do not interrupt it during the scanning process, or you may lost your data.

    

Step three, click the needed file in the scan result list. You could find out these files easily according to the file’s type, size, name through the preview function.  

    

Step four, click Browse to select storage path. Please choose another save path for the recovered files for avoid of overwritten.

Step five, click Next, just wait for a while till the program finished and you will get all your files back.

Not only this software could recover the formatted HR, it can also recover deleted photos, files deleted from recycle bin. And as it’s perfect compatibility, you can use it recover data from camera, USB or any other storage device.

Can I recover a formatted USB drive

The USB drive may be formatted for all kinds of causes. As you don’t want private info be disclosed, the project has been completed and the data is not need any more, defragment disk and transfer data from one USB disk to another, or you can say that I just want to format the USB disk. It’s not important the reason why you format it, the only thing we care about is how to recover the data we needed from the formatted USB disk. Can I recover the formatted USB drive?

    

The answer is YES, theoretically. You format the USB disk means the data contained is invisible, it is not a destructive procedure. The data will reside on the USB drive until the space it occupies is used to store new data, and then the old data will be destroyed. You can deeply scan the USB disk and retrieve the data through a professional data recovery software like Hdata Recovery Software before the data is overwritten. For it’s powerful, easy-to-use features, you can recover the data after a few steps.

First, find the software on the web, install and run it on you PC.

   

Second, link the formatted USB disk to PC, move your mouse on the button on the interface of the program to select the issue you suffered. Here we can just click mode of U-Disk & Memory Cord Data Recovery and choose the formatted USB disk.

   

Third, click Next for high-speed scanning. Hold on a few minutes ,do not choose interrupt during scanning for averting data loss.

   

Fourth, click the exact file you need in the scan result list. Files could be conveniently previewed for it’s type, size, name, etc. Pay attention, missing file’s name could be changed by PC system automatically. You can use Universal Recovery mode to scan again if files are not found.

    

Fifth, click Browse to select save path for recovered files. You should choose a new path for preventing data overwritten.

Sixth, click Next, the software will recover the data automatically. The only thing you should do is just to be patient for a few minutes.

Do not put all your eggs in one basket. Though the Hdata Recovery Software could recover the formatted USB drive so easily, the best way for avoiding data loss is adding data backup.