Question Data recovery help required!

[Safester]

Hi,

I was creating a Windows10 media file to USB and I misread one of the steps where it asks you to select where to create the media. There was a note at the top saying that the process will wipe any data and to make a backup and a list of available drives were shown so I selected my data drive thinking it would backup any files to the root folder, unfortunately this was not the case and it 'wiped' the drive. All my apps, music, personal files, EVERYTHING gone! Thankfully I do have some backups but these are several years old now.

In the process it repartioned the drive, so there is a 32GB partition where it installed the Windows Media (oddly installing it on the USB as well) but the remaining drive space is now 'unallocated'. In Disk Management where you create a new simple volume there is the option 'Do not format this volume', would this be the best option to select so I can try and recover any data?

Also, what recovery tools come highly recommended? I've tried Recuva in the past and it worked but I was only looking for a single file then, maybe there are better ones for the level of recovery I need, I'm prepared to pay rather than get a free / trial version ONLY if they perform better, deeper scans with improved results.

Any help, advice and suggestions appreciated.

 

[Lutfij]

If you used Windows Media Creation Tools, you shouldn't be able to format any other drive apart from a pen drive plugged into the system.

You might want to look into TestDisk and Recuva but your mileage can and will vary.

 

[Safester]

But that's exactly what it did do. It showed all my drives when asking to select where to install the media and I selected my data drive thinking it was where files would be backed up to (it's a stupid feature of the creation tool to allow this to happen).

I've looked at Recuva already but it won't allow me to scan the unallocated drive.