Formatting Your Hard Disk by Adroit Data Recovery Centre

A disk reformat is like wiping your slate clean. It is the last resort when you find that your system has been plagued with glitches. When attacked by a spate of viruses and malware, your computer’s speed will slow to a snail’s pace as many programmes are installed and run simultaneously without your knowing. A reformat can help restore your computer to its previous pristine state.

Backing Up
First of all, before you even start to clean out your hard disk, it is important to backup your data. Note that copying your files and backing up your files are two very different procedures.
One caveat when copying your files: your documents might end up corrupted even though the process was successful. Unless you plan on doing a manual check on all your files after the process is over, backing up your data is a safer bet. Also, some files may be locked and they do not allow you to copy or transfer them to another folder.

Be sure to invest in a standalone hard disk and save your backed-up data in that hard disk. This will prevent any accidental deletion or virus infection. So, if you find that you have lost a few files after your reformat, you can always turn to your back-up data.

Steps to Backing up Files
What if you did not back up your data? Fear not. Hope that lady luck is smiling on you and that your data has not been overwritten.

Yes, that is right. All is not lost if your data is not overwritten. That means you need to stop using the drive! Do not use it to install any OS or even save your ongoing work. Next, find another drive that has the space for you to clone said hard drive to it. Note that it is important to back up both your data and OS. The following method can be used to back up your data and any OS, be it Mac or Windows.

1) Create an image of the drive. You can use free tools such as ADRC Data Recovery Tools.
2) Choose ‘Image Backup/Restore’ and then ‘Create Image’. Select the drive you wish to clone and begin the process.
3) Once completed, copy the image to another drive.
4) Then, using the same software, select ‘Image Backup/Restore’ and then ‘Store Image Disk’.
5) Specify the drive to extract the image to. (Do not choose your reformatted disk!)

As alluded to, it takes a lot of luck to retrieve files from a formatted disk. Your best chance of recovering the data would be to send your hard disk to a data recovery specialist.