Can you recover deleted data from a copied disk image?

[HorusDeathtouch]

Strange question (to me anyway,) but screw it, figured I'd ask. So I have this hard drive that cannot hold a windows installation, but the disk itself still basically functions enough to get data from it. I connected it to another computer to transfer data (using an enclosure) but it said the drive had to be formated to be used. I figured I will just format it, reinstall Windows, then run data recovery software, but the drive won't boot after installing windows on it again. I'm stuck swapping hard drives back and forth from one laptop right now. If I copy the disk image to an external, copy it back to a working internal, install windows on it, boot, and then run data recovery, will I be able to get the same deleted data from the first hard drive back?

 

[USAFRet]

If I copy the disk image to an external, copy it back to a working internal, install windows on it, boot, and then run data recovery, will I be able to get the same deleted data from the first hard drive back?

Doubtful.
Why isn't this data backed up somewhere else?

 

[unksol]

If you reinstalled Windows you already started overwriting your data. Now you want to install it again? You needed to attempt data recovery with it in read only and write NOTHING to the disk. Not really worth messing with at this point.

 

[photonboy]

1) Since it won't boot it sounds like the drive is mostly hosed
(can't be certain as not booting Windows and not accessing it at all aren't the same thing)

2) All data you overwrote by installing Windows is gone.
(say you had a 500GB and used 200GB of that. At least 20GB is unrecoverable likely)

3) You CAN recover data in theory.
a) Get a new drive that has enough space to recover the data you think exists

b) Install Windows to the new drive (leave OLD drive unhooked)

c) Install recovery software like EASEUS' offers (can use FREE version to scan drive and see if it can find anything)

d) If data is accessible, run FULL version (or find free version of similar software) and have it COPY the appropriate data to a folder on the new drive.

*So do NOT write or even use the drive until you have the software installed, a place to COPY to, and the USB enclosure setup. Then, perhaps, you may be able to have the software scan and copy over detected files.

Other:
For future reference, you never, ever format a drive you wish to recover data from or write to it in any way.