How to Recover a Formatted Partition on Windows

Have you lost essential files after formatting your partition? Or maybe Windows prompted you to format a drive and now all your files are gone? This scenario might not be common, but it’s more frequent than you’d think—over 500 visitors have recently sought solutions in this guide, finding the answers they desperately needed. To join them, all you need to do is follow our step-by-step guide on how to recover data from a formatted partition.

What Happens to Data After Partition Formatting?

When you format a partition, you’re preparing it for use with a specific file system. But contrary to what many believe, formatting doesn’t immediately destroy all your data because, in most cases, this is what actually happens:

• The existing file system structure gets rewritten
• and the file allocation tables are cleared.

It’s kind of like erasing the table of contents in a book but leaving the text (data) intact. This is why recovering files from a formatted drive is possible in many cases, at least until the old data gets overwritten by new data.

Quick vs Full Format

Notice how I wrote that partition formatting doesn’t destroy all data in most cases. That’s because Windows offers two formatting options:

• A quick format simply rewrites the existing file system structure and clears the file allocation table (as described above).
• However, a full format overwrites all sectors with zeros and makes data recovery virtually impossible.

The good news is that the Full format method isn’t performed by default, so there’s a good chance your data is still there if you haven’t checked that box during formatting.

Suggestions To Achieve Successful Format Recovery

Look, recovering formatted partitions is possible, but timing and proper handling are essential. Here’s what you need to do (and not do) to maximize your chances of success:

• 🚫 Stop writing any data to the partition: Formatted files stay on the partition and continue to exist somewhere on the volume, although they appear invisible. Furthermore, if you save data to the partition after formatting, there is a possibility to overwrite the recoverable data. Hence, immediately stop using the partition and close programs that may access the drive.
• 💿 Do not reformat the partition: Since the formatting process creates a new file system on the volume, reformatting the partition again hampers your chances of data recovery.
• ❌ Do not run a disk check on the formatted partition: The disk check function provided by the operating system checks and repairs partition errors. However, this tool may repair excessively and even damage information critical to successful partition recovery.
• ✔️ Try trusted recovery software: Do not try any cracked recovery software because it may contain viruses and destroy recoverable data. Instead, you should download data recovery software from trusted websites. The primary criterion is that the tool should be clean, read-only, and reliable.

How to Recover a Formatted Partition Using Recovery Software

Your best option for recovering data from a formatted partition in case you haven’t backed up your data is data recovery software. Such software is available from many different developers, but not all solutions are equally capable. One tool that stands out as an excellent choice for formatted partition recovery is Disk Drill because it combines powerful recovery capabilities with great usability.

Disk Drill’s excellent partition recovery performance doesn’t come at the expense of usability. The partition recovery software features an intuitive interface that makes the recovery process straightforward even for beginners. You get real-time file preview capabilities to verify files before recovery, powerful search filters to quickly locate specific files or file types, and the ability to pause and resume scans. Here’s how to recover your formatted partition using Disk Drill:

Step 1: Download and Install Disk Drill

Download Disk Drill from the official website. Launch the installer and follow the installation instructions to install the software on a different drive or partition than the one you’re trying to recover data from to avoid overwriting potentially recoverable files.

Step 2: Select Your Formatted Drive

Launch Disk Drill. If your drive has multiple partitions, you select the specific formatted partition you want to recover, but it’s generally best to select the entire formatted drive. Then, click Search for lost data.

Step 3: Let the Scan Complete

Wait while Disk Drill analyzes your drive. You can click the Review found items files button to see scan results in real time.

Step 4: Select Files for Recovery

Either click the Recover all button to recover all found data or browse through the files and select only what you want to recover. You can use the filters in the left pane to narrow down the search results, the search bar to find a specific file by name, and the preview feature to see pictures, videos, and other content directly in Disk Drill.

Browse through the found files, use the preview feature to verify file contents, and select what you want to recover. You can use filters on the left to narrow down the results.

Step 5: Recover Your Files

Click the Recover button and choose a recovery destination on a different drive or partition than the one you’re recovering data from.

The free version limits recovery to 500 MB, but allows you to verify the recoverability of an unlimited number of files.

Common Reasons for Partition Formatting

Here are the most common scenarios that lead to partition formatting:

• 😵 Accidental formatting: Even experienced users can format the wrong partition. On r/DataHoarder, a user accidentally formatted their secondary drive while attempting to format a USB drive—a common mistake when working with multiple drives or using disk management tools.
• 🔄 File system compatibility issues: On the SuperUser forum , a user with over 1.5TB of data found themselves unable to access their APFS-formatted external drive on Windows. This cross-platform incompatibility often forces users to consider reformatting, though better solutions exist.
• ⚠️ RAW partition errors: A popular thread on r/DataHoarder discussed recovery options when drives suddenly appear as RAW. While Windows prompts for formatting in these cases, data recovery should be attempted first.
• 🔧 System-prompted formatting: Windows may suggest formatting a drive if it detects file system inconsistencies. Though it might seem like the obvious fix, this should be treated as a last resort after trying other recovery methods.
• ⚡ File system corruption: Windows users can encounter persistent filesystem corruption that standard repair tools like CHKDSK can’t fix. A good example comes from the r/WindowsHelp subreddit, where a user faced corruption warnings while trying to shrink their C: drive. Despite CHKDSK running at every startup, the corruption persisted.

But even if you’ve already formatted the partition for one of the reasons above (or maybe some other reason that we haven’t covered), recovery is still possible in many cases—but you need to act quickly and avoid writing new data to the drive.

Helpful Checklist While Formatting Your Drive

Formatting is essential to heighten a drive’s performance. Here are some simple tips on formatting so that 100% recovery is possible with data loss:

• Free backup tools like Macrium Reflect Free or AOMEI Backupper can create complete disk images that make it possible to restore the formatted drive to the original state should anything go wrong.
• While formatting a portable drive such as an SD card or external hard drive, use the exFAT file system. This file system is compatible with multiple operating systems. As a result, you can avoid formatting the drive for compatibility reasons.
• In case of any performance-related issues, it’s best to leave formatting as a last-resort solution. Instead, use a diagnostic and repair tool like Victoria SSD/HDD, which can measure the performance of your hard drive and, if necessary, remap bad sectors. You can also run the Windows CHKDSK tool to fix file system corruption.
• If formatting the drive is a must, opt for quick formatting rather than complete formatting. As explained in more detail here, a full format results in a complete reorganization of file sectors (with the new file system) in the drive. However, in a quick format, even if data is lost, it is recoverable. Another reason to not go for the full format is that this increases the chances of the hard disk deteriorating or wearing out, resulting in bad sectors.

FAQ

Conclusion

Recovering data from formatted partitions is possible, regardless of which operating system you are using. With our instructions, you should be able to attempt data recovery. You just need the right software tools or a basic understanding of the command prompt, and you will have your data back in no time!