Western Digital External Hard Drive my files lost!

[bearmon2010]

Hi.. Please bear with my English. I have all files and games on my Western Digital External Hard Drive and guess what ? I accident click format and it erased everything too late. How do I bring them back ? HELP!

[bearmon2010]

Please ?? I need your help.. 13 people view and no one can help me out. PLEASE ?!

[Joe_S]

Recovery is pretty doubtfull since you formatted it.

Joe

[bearmon2010]

Hello. I successed bring them back thanks to recovery software program. You have to search for it on the google for free personal software. Yes, you can bring it back. Please closed this thread since it is not helpful here for my answer. I search and search on my own and I finally found one and everything works perfectly fine but thanks anyway.

[fzabkar]

bearmon2010, I find it ironic that you are complaining that no-one was able to help you, yet now that you have found a solution, you have decided not to tell anyone about it.

BTW, here are some utilities that may help others:

Power Data Recovery Free Edition:
http://www.powerdatarecovery.com/power-data-recovery.html

GetDataBack V4.21 (commercial):
http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm

Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery (freeware):
http://www.piriform.com/recuva

PhotoRec, Digital Picture and File Recovery (freeware):
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

DMDE - DM Disk Editor and Data Recovery Software (freeware edition has reduced functionality):
http://softdm.com/

R-Studio (commercial):
http://www.data-recovery-software.net/
http://www.r-studio.com/#rstudio_demo

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard (freeware):
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/

[RoyalPal]

Hi. For those of you who have given up hope on data recovery but would still want your (WD My Passport Essential or other) external drives back, but are unable to format since Windows allows to format drives that are only 32 GB or less,  then please do visit the link below & read through.

http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/formatting-external-hard-drive-to-fat-32/

Very handy hints, particularly the Tokiwa formatter (Please note that once you use the tool, data is permanently destroyed from the Disk) -   refer point # 37 for detailed instructions:

http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/Fat32Formatter/index.html 

Very small tool (188 kb), & easy to use.

For me it was like manna from heaven.  I had issues in reading data from the disk though the drive showed up on Windows Explorer. So here's what I did:

1. First, used a 3rd party tool - MiniTool Power Data Recovery 6.5  (google for it) to recover all my data, which I restored to my laptop drive. (takes time depending on how many GB you plan to recover, hence suggest you run this overnight)

2. Then using the Tokiwa tool, I formatted my WD Passport Essential (500 GB). - suggest you do this overnight for disks larger than 250 GB.

Hope this helps those of you who are struggling to FORMAT your 32 GB or more external Hard Disks.