Formatted CD by Mistake – Can I ever have the data back?

[Cleek]

Just want look at my dcs baby photos on a very old CD. But accidently clicked on Format commend instead! When opened the files again it is all emptied. A local computer man said he may be able to get the data back but it depends. He doesn't know if he really can or how much it will cost until he has a look at the problem. Can I ever get the data back?

Um, not as far as I know. I thought formatting wiped everything clean so you can use it again.

I think it might be possible, but I'd get an expert to do it.

It's certainly possible although it depends on lots of factors. You can purchase software that would allow you to attempt it yourself but it's far better left in the hands of a professional as you could end up doing more harm than good.

Hope you get a good result!

No help to you but just to share a cautionary tale about making sure you use a good and trusted professional for the job. I had a similar situation, in that I had burned photos to CD but clearly didn't do a great job of it on one or two as I could see the files, but not as photos. Took all my CDs (including the ones working perfectly) to the local computer shop to see if they could a) extract the photos from the dodgy CDs and b) take all the photos from all the CDs and put them on an external hard drive. They lost one of the (undamaged) CDs. So now I no longer have any photos of DS aged from 2 months to 9 months (and still haven't done anything about the damaged CDs as I'm scared to let them out of my sight).

DH (computer bloke) also says "it depends", upon what sort of format you did.

A CD has a kind of 'table of contents', and it's that bit that gets wiped in some kinds of formatting. If you did that kind, then there's software you can get to recover the files, as they're untouched by the formatting, but references to where they are located on the CD have been wiped. Or a competent PC support type of person can get them for you. Might be pricey, though.

If you did a full format, however, then I'm afraid it's all been zapped forever.

Fingers crossed!

My (not so) DH once did this to our holiday photos one year.

He got "a man" to do what he could, but we only got back half of the pics and some of them were just thumbnails rather than proper sized photos.