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Attempted to format 500GB hd with FAT

N

nigm

Senior member
In an attempt to get my new Sata 640GB HD to work, I messed up my external 500GB HD.

I was using the "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool" (located here) to create a bootable USB disk. I accidently picked my 500GB HD instead of my USB flash drive.

It attempted to format my HD using FAT, but spit it out an error immediately saying "Content too large".

I look at my 500GB HD and the partition is gone. Any ideas how I can recover this?? I tried Partition Magic but it says the disk is "bad"

Any alternatives I can try? Maybe I can boot into it from Knopix or something?
 
Try HP support? IMO, you should never have significant unbacked up information on a HD. Of course it happens, but it's something to work toward.
 
What if it's the HDD used for backups that has been accidently formatted? 😀

There are partition recovery software you can try:
Partition-Recovery -> Active@ Partition product
Runtime Software -> GetDataBack product

I prefer the Runtime one, that has helped me rescue lots of data, once from a malfunctioning external enclosure and 2 occasions from LaCie BigDisk.... had 2 LaCie BigDisks and both of them broke down on me, didn't even switch them on for long at a time. Not all data was saved, around 80% was saved but I was happy enough. Good luck.
 
Originally posted by: ShadowFlareX
What if it's the HDD used for backups that has been accidently formatted? 😀
Click to expand...
You have to be prepared for any eventuality within reason. Data in two places is some insurance. Either one quits, you have the other. If both go down you are screwed unless you have the data in a 3rd place. Thus, I have my most crucial data backed up offsite and have my important data on at least two HDs onsite.

For recovering data I used freeundelete in February when I wanted to recover data I'd deleted from a HD. It worked fine. I don't know if it could be helpful in this situation.

 
Well what i usually do is disconnect every drive when im doing something like that (just formatted windows a couple days ago) just to prevent anything from happening. Hopefully you get your data back.
 
Originally posted by: ShadowFlareX
What if it's the HDD used for backups that has been accidently formatted? 😀

There are partition recovery software you can try:
Partition-Recovery -> Active@ Partition product
Runtime Software -> GetDataBack product

I prefer the Runtime one, that has helped me rescue lots of data, once from a malfunctioning external enclosure and 2 occasions from LaCie BigDisk.... had 2 LaCie BigDisks and both of them broke down on me, didn't even switch them on for long at a time. Not all data was saved, around 80% was saved but I was happy enough. Good luck.
Click to expand...

I would think the data recovery should work if all they did was destroy the partition header right?
 
I would think the data recovery should work if all they did was destroy the partition header right?
Click to expand...

Yea, in fact if all it did was delete the partition recreating it at the same starting cylinder will take care of that. Just be careful about the partitioning tool that you use, a lot of the ones for Windows/DOS do more than just edit the partition table.
 
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