Unformatting HDD recovers no files

[Ionme]

I accidentally formatted an external NTFS HDD that had a lot of very large video files, and used ontrack and easeus to unformat it. The problem is that the folder structure is gone, so spotting files is difficult, but when I go to the video section, to see If anything survived, all I find is shredded pieces of avi files, 100.000 of them each named with a number, and obviously unplayable. Why does that happen, and what can I do now?

 

[The Paladin]

The numbers files are the chucks of video files a complete video is composed of.. an chain of files if you prefer to compose the final product.
in my experience, video files are the hardest to recover because of these facts.

 

[Ionme]

The numbers files are the chucks of video files a complete video is composed of.. an chain of files if you prefer to compose the final product.

I guessed so, but how can I actually recover the full, playable video file out of these chunks, that are pretty much useless in that stage?

 

[aquielisunari]

The numbers files are the chucks of video files a complete video is composed of.. an chain of files if you prefer to compose the final product.

I guessed so, but how can I actually recover the full, playable video file out of these chunks, that are pretty much useless in that stage?

I use https://www.piriform.com/recuva/download for retrieving lost files. While it won't lead you to Neverland(Stellarium can). I have a folder(named recuv) with about 40 recovered SD videos which range in size from about 300MB to over 1GB. The recovery results will vary. Some videos will freeze and the user has to manually skip ahead around 1 minute to be able to play again. Other videos are recovered without issue.

 

[Ionme]

That's not very hopeful, since there were a few 25Gb videos in there, but I'm trying it just now.

 

[aquielisunari]

That's not very hopeful, since there were a few 25Gb videos in there, but I'm trying it just now.

Yes, this wouldn't be helpful if my files set the bar. Those amounts are only examples of what I have recovered.

 

[Ionme]

It managed to recover about 1/4th of the files (unluckily not the important ones), which is a performance much better than the previous two, but still nowhere near perfect. The ones saved play fine as far as I can tell.
Still It's the best thing yet, so thank you

 

[aquielisunari]

It managed to recover about 1/4th of the files (unluckily not the important ones), which is a performance much better than the previous two, but still nowhere near perfect. The ones saved play fine as far as I can tell.
Still It's the best thing yet, so thank you

You're welcome.

Have you enabled deep scan for videos? That option is available after you tell it where the file is(should say you're not sure apart from the drive). The previous programs may have broken the important files hence the bits and pieces you are seeing. Easus used to be called Murphy. https://www.cleverfiles.com/disk-drill-windows.html is another option.