Lost Files, Recovery Data software?

[warrior21]

hello all,

long story short, i just lost my last 3d project due to reformatting my pc and i need to know if i can get the files back.(i thought i backed it up on my external hardrive but apperently it canceled half way thru)

i tried some free software for data recovery but it it doesn't search deep enough to find the files.

this is what i was working on. but now its all gone:brick:

http://www.mladenjovicic.com/wip/wippo_013.jpg

thanks for your time.

[LowRez]

Ouch, not nice to lose, but sadly I dobt you'll be able to retrieve it if you've formatted the hard drive. (have you written over the formatted hard drive with anything else yet?) Formatting isn't always peremenant, but software thats actually good enough to recover this sort of thing isnt cheap, and as long as you didnt data srubber it it may be retrieable if your very very lucky....

[ReplicA]

Man, that sucks. That's a great model, and to lose it that way stings! I've recently had to reformat twice, and lost stuff I thought I backed up as well, but luckily, they weren't important files.

I've tried a lot of free file recovery software before, none of it was good enough for what I wanted. Sorry, man, I wish you luck with getting it back, but I doubt it'll happen.

On the plus side, you've got some REALLY good refs for starting over, so it shouldn't take too long to get back to where you were before the evil struck.

[warrior21]

lowrez: well i used the system recovery thing since i never got a xp cd with my machine so that reformats my pc, and me being stupid and all, i choose the option"destructive recovery" where it deletes everything and goes back to the original setup version. only reason i did that, i needed to free space up, had like 5 gigs left on a 250 gig drive, thinking i backed up my most important 3d files. lost some stuff for my samurai project too.bah

replica: yep. spent the whole day downloading various recovery programs, and nothing, so im sure its gone forever. as far as the project goes, i dont think i'l be redoing it. wasted too much time on it, so i'l just move onto something new. argh i was done sculpting too(not seen in the pic) and was about to move onto the lowpoly.

[ReplicA]

NO! Don't quit! It's a cool looking character. But I understand how that can go, spend a lot of time on something, lose it all, and just kinda wanna move on. I'm sorry to see it go, cause I did really like it.

[LowRez]

If you did a system restore with destructive recovery on, unfortunatly I think it will have essentially reset ever 1 and 0 back to what it was when you bought it.... It was a quality looking piece though, shame to lose it.

[Disco Stu]

no matter how you format. normally files always remain on the storage device.

you ashould look up if u have a firm close to you specialised in this.
it can ofc become costly especially when it had many gigs but you could definitly try that if u really want them files back.

normally it works

[DreameR]

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

[warrior21]

AHA! success!!

found one software, had a deep scan option, took like 3-4 hours( i left it over night) and it found ALL my files. gotta get the full version tho, because demo wont let me restore the files unfortunately. has a size limit or something.

but its THERE!

[LowRez]

awesome news then :)

[ReplicA]

Ah, fantastic news, man! I hope you can get it back, and have it workable. I really wanna see it finished :D

[KEDavidson]

what software was it?

[warrior21]

Lowrez,replica:yah i feel so relieved:lucky:

ScudzAlmighty: i think its called Stellar Phoenix. I left it running at home,so im not totally sure

[Lamont]

Be careful with this "recovery" software. Sometimes they can list the data that was there because it' stored in a certain part of the HDD, but when it comes to actual recovery, it's bogus. Good luck.

[warrior21]

most of them are but this ones legit from what i can tell. i did get all my files back afterall so its all good now. time to get back to work! hehe

[Blenderhead]

Sorry you lost such a great piece man. :( If it's any consolation, I think the images you posted can be put in your portfolio anyway. :)

[ReplicA]

That's awesome, warrior21. Makes me believe there might be hope for humanity after all :D

[MRico]

This happened to me once, but I only lost porn, so not a big deal.

[rv_el]

Back in 2001 i lost some stuff and couldn't find a program that would properly get it back.

But in about 2003/2004 i had a drive fail on me. The whole boot sector was borked on it. This was i think Windows 2000 Fat 32 or something. So i got this program. GetDataBak Fat 32.. It worked like a charm! i recovered tons of old files off of the drive.

it claims it could get data off of formatted and fried drives etc..

I'm glad to see ya got it back. That reminds me i should back my latest work up!

[MRico]

I have a question....how is it possible to get files back? I mean...so it's not actually deleted off the HD when you reformat? Or is it almost like a safety, where you reformat...shit get's moved to a small section then deletes itself permanently after a specific time period? Yeah, I'm not an I.T. guy. I'm glad you got your stuff back...just confused on why info is still there, when it says you're deleting it...it's all lies!!

[gaganjain]

As rv_el told GetDataBak is good software it even work 64bit...
i lost whole my cg work and References i got all back
One thing to note when recovering data don't save on same hdd or else it overwrite data which is not recovered
system overwrite data which has been deleted.
One thing every cg artist should do is take backup!!!
Here tool which does work and it free too
SyncBack (http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html) SyncBack Freeware V3.2.19.0 it on bottom of the page
Tutorial Automatically back up your hard drive (http://lifehacker.com/147855/geek-to-live--automatically-back-up-your-hard-drive)

[Blenderhead]

Damn this happened to me now! So stupid! I tried that StellarPhoenix but apparently I have to buy it before even knowing if it can find the file I deleted about a week back maybe. Maybe I'm using the program wrong? What button should I be pushing :D If I deleted a folder about a week back through my recycle bin, is it recoverable? It's not a big file size wise...

[gaganjain]

Damn this happened to me now! So stupid! I tried that StellarPhoenix but apparently I have to buy it before even knowing if it can find the file I deleted about a week back maybe. Maybe I'm using the program wrong? What button should I be pushing :D If I deleted a folder about a week back through my recycle bin, is it recoverable? It's not a big file size wise...
it depends if that sector on hdd has been overwrite with other file then it not possible...

[sinz]

Ontrack Easy CD Recovery is a windows program for trying to recover data.

[Blenderhead]

it depends if that sector on hdd has been overwrite with other file then it not possible...

How can I know if this has happened or not?

[sinz]

I think it gets over written if you install a new program so hopefully you didn't. =/

[Blenderhead]

Haha I installed 3 programs to help me find the lost file...how ironic! :D

[sinz]

Best of luck on fixing the issue hopefully you can still get your data back.

[typhus22]

Have you tried this:

http://www.digitalfilerecovery.com/

there was a copy out there.... not that i condone downloading it from a torrent site or nothing but its worth a try.

the only thing is that if you reformated your machine ...

[YdoUwant2know]

With enough time and money you can get just about anything back. My brother in-law use to work as a network admin for the air force. The stuff they had to do to make sure people could not recover data was insane. Apparently there are a few FBI programs that can recover data even if the drive have been formatted three or four times.

I'm glad everything worked out for you. Though this reminds me, time for another full back up...