How to Recover Files From a Formatted Hard Drive (2025)

Have you accidentally formatted a drive you didn’t mean to and lost important files? Or maybe you planned to format it but realized afterward that you forgot to back up your data? You’re definitely not alone. Formatting mishaps are one of the leading causes of data loss, and this guide has become a go-to resource for thousands of users—drawing over 12,000 visitors last year alone! So let’s not waste time. Here’s everything you need to know to recover your formatted hard drive.

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The moment you realize formatting caused you to lose important files, stop using the drive right away. Using it could overwrite the files you’re trying to recover, which will make it much harder to get them back. To better understand how to proceed, thoroughly read through our article.

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Want to skip the basics and jump straight to the recovery guide? Click here.

Can I Recover Data from a Formatted Hard Drive?

The short answer is: Yes, you can. However, there are a few factors that may make this process more or less challenging. Stick with us as we equip you with the information you need to recover data from formatted hard drives easily.

What Kind of Drive Are You Using?

There are two common types of drives – HDDs and SSDs. This may seem like superfluous information, but there are key differences between these drives that make data recovery a bit more nuanced.

Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) store data physically. When you write data onto them, they alter some parts of their surfaces magnetically. As a result, even if you format the data, it is still possible to recover it.
Solid State Drives (SSDs) are a bit more complicated. They use flash memory and rely on the TRIM command to optimize performance. TRIM erases data blocks completely when they’re marked for deletion. As a result, formatting an SSD often wipes all data, which makes recovery nearly impossible.

And now, some positive news. If you’re using an external SSD with Windows OS, there is a strong likelihood that the TRIM function was not operational. TRIM support over USB is rare—while some external SSDs do support it, they represent a very small percentage of devices. Additionally, if your drive is formatted in exFAT, TRIM will not activate automatically. While we won’t go further into the technical details, this means that data recovery from a formatted external SSD is still possible. Here’s a helpful video that demonstrates how to verify if TRIM is enabled on your SSD.

Oleksandr Lukashyn QA Specialist, Handy Recovery Advisor

How Did You Format the Drive?

At first glance, this might seem like a trivial question – does it even matter? Well, it actually matters quite a bit. There are two types of formatting methods you could have used, but only one can be easily recovered from.

Quick format overwrites the file system, which makes the files inaccessible without actually erasing them. No commands are sent to remove the data itself, so if you performed a quick format, your data is still on the drive and can be recovered. Also If you have an SSD, don’t forget about TRIM, which we discussed earlier, as it can impact recovery.
Full format (the one performed when you uncheck the Quick Format option) goes one step further than the previous method. In older operating systems, this process simply checked for bad sectors and fixed them. However, nearly all newer OS updates not only delete data but also overwrite it with zeroes. This action permanently removes all stored files. Data from fully formatted drives cannot be recovered using recovery software.

There’s also another formatting method—low-level formatting—but it’s probably not relevant to your case. This process is typically handled by manufacturers or specialized software. While full formatting works at the partition level, low-level formatting formats every bit of memory on the drive, resetting it entirely to factory settings. As you might expect, like full formatting, data recovery is impossible after low-level formatting.

While the principle of storing/writing data (magnetic vs flash memory) has a significant impact on data recovery after formatting, file systems also play a huge role. File systems are like a library catalog for your data. They keep track of where files are located on the storage device. Formatting essentially rewrites the catalog, which removes references to the old data.

Perhaps the most critical aspect to understand regarding file systems and data recovery is that formatting to the same file system can potentially corrupt data records more severely than formatting from one file system (e.g., format A) to another (e.g., format B). However, many data recovery software solutions are capable of recovering data not only by relying on file system records, but also by identifying unique file signatures left on the device. But enough theory, let’s move on to practical data recovery methods.

Oleksandr Lukashyn QA Specialist, Handy Recovery Advisor

How to Recover a Formatted Hard Drive

By now, you probably have a good idea whether you can recover data from your hard drive. Unlike some other types of data loss, recovering data from formatted drives requires specialized data recovery software. Unfortunately, the internet is filled with conflicting information on the available tools, which might make it difficult to choose reliable software.

To make this easier, we’ve got a list of the best data recovery apps right here. But in this article, we’ll break down three specific options to help you recover your files.

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We tested each tool using clones of the same hard drive and the same computer. This approach allows us to objectively share our findings. We first quickly formatted all of the hard drives before using the recovery software. Read on to learn how it all worked out!

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We’ll write the steps below in a guide format, such as ‘Download … from … official website,’ to make it look more like a step-by-step instructions, not a first-person journey. We did everything exactly as we describe under the hood ourselves and will provide first-person comments only when appropriate.

Option A: Disk Drill Data Recovery

Disk Drill has been around for some time now (the Windows version was released in 2015) and has gained significant traction in the data recovery market. As of this article update, Version 5 is the latest release, but some users, like this popular Reddit reviewer, have already had a chance to try Version 6 and shared their thoughts.

Many users and reviewers have praised its recovery algorithms, friendly interface, and reliability. It can successfully recover data from formatted drives or file system loss across various file systems (FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, EXT4, and more). It boasts a large database of supported file types (signatures) and is constantly being updated. To us, this means that the creators are always making sure that their performance does not dip, and that they take reviews and feedback seriously. We have personally extensively tested it in several other cases too.

Disk Drill runs on a freemium model, that lets you restore up to 500 MB of data for free. It also has an integrated backup tool that will allow you to create an image of your drive and scan it instead of the device itself. It is very useful for situations when a failing drive is involved. For instance, if you formatted a drive because the system prompted you, it could be a sign of a bigger issue with the drive. Creating an image first helps protect your data, since every operation (even read-only ones) on such drives can lead to permanent data loss. Refer to the link we shared above for details.

Installation

Download Disk Drill from the Cleverfiles’ official website. Find the downloaded file (usually in your Downloads folder) and double-click it to open.

Follow the setup wizard. The clean user interface will guide you through the installation process. Click Next, choose your installation folder, and agree to the terms of use.

The whole process took us about a minute and the software was ready to go.

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Caution! – Make sure that you install Disk Drill on a separate drive. If you download it on the formatted hard drive (or partition), it can lead to overwriting and permanent data loss.

Performance

In the main interface look for your formatted drive in the list of available devices and select it to proceed.

Once you click the Search for Lost Data button, Disk Drill’s advanced algorithm begins scanning the formatted drive for traces of recoverable files. The entire scan may take some time (It depends on the hard drive’s size, the type of connection, its condition, and the number of file systems the disk has been formatted or used with). Disk Drill then allocates all recoverable files into specific categories – Pictures, Video, Audio, Documents, Archives, and other files. When we clicked Review Found Files, the data was divided into three categories – Deleted or Lost, Existing, and Reconstructed.

📁 Deleted or Lost: This category lists the files you lost during the hard drive format.
⚒️ Reconstructed: This category has files that Disk Drill found based on their structures. Disk Drill employs signature scans to find such files.
💾 Existing: Since you’re dealing with a formatted hard drive, chances are this category might be empty. However, this category is useful if you want to access files that you cannot normally access through File Explorer.

You can also type specific file extensions in the search bar to further filter your search results. As you click on individual files, a small preview will appear on the right side. Disk Drill can preview nearly all file types—either natively supported by your operating system or through third-party apps installed on your PC.

After you’ve selected the files you want to recover or decided to go with the Recover All option, click the Recover button.

Disk Drill will ask you to specify a folder as the target destination before starting the recovery process. If you select the same drive you’re recovering data from, Disk Drill will notify you. This is not recommended, as saving files to the same drive can overwrite the data you’re trying to recover.

After the recovery is complete, you can find your files in the folder you selected as the target destination.

In our case, we were also able to open and use all the files we recovered. Disk Drill performed as advertised, which is rare for most software.

Results

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We did not run into any issues with Disk Drill. The user interface was clean and intuitive. Whether you’ve worked with data recovery tools before or not, even beginners can navigate it without any trouble. It worked as expected, and many customization options helped us zero in on missing files.

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Did you know? We also put Disk Drill through rigorous testing to evaluate its safety and reliability for your PC. It won’t harm your system during the data recovery process.

Option B: Recuva Data Recovery

Piriform, the team that made CCleaner, the tool that cleans up registry files, is also the mind behind Recuva. It is touted to be a simple but decent tool for data recovery.

Recuva is a reliable recovery solution that allows you to recover formatted HDD data for free. It is a fast, lightweight software solution that you can use to retrieve pictures, music, documents, videos, emails, and other important data. But any added functionality requires you to shell out some money, which then gives you access to customer support. Still, even its paid, professional version is quite budget-friendly.