What to do right now
- Do not copy the files you meant for the other drive onto the one you formatted.
- Find out whether it was a quick format, which takes seconds, or a full format, which takes much longer.
- Scan the formatted drive from another drive and save the results to a different physical disk.
Step by step
Stop, and cancel the format if it is still running
If a full format is still in progress, cancel it; the area it has not reached yet may still hold data. Then do not use the drive at all. Above all, do not carry on with what you planned and copy files onto it, because every new file lands in space that held old ones.
Work out which format ran
In the Explorer format dialog and in Disk Management, quick format is ticked by default and finishes in seconds. If it was unticked, or you typed the format command without the /q switch, Windows wrote zeros across the whole volume, which takes minutes to hours. A full format leaves nothing to recover.
Prepare a destination disk
You need another physical disk with enough free space for the files you want back, such as an external drive. If the formatted drive shares a physical disk with other partitions, a different disk is still the safer choice.
Run the Balanced scan on the formatted drive
Start FileFix Ultimate from a USB stick or another drive, open Deleted file recovery and pick the formatted drive letter. The Balanced scan looks for remains of the old file system first, which is where original names and folders come from.
Add the Deep signature scan if needed
If the drive was formatted to a different file system, or the Balanced scan finds little, run the Deep signature scan. It reads every sector and recognises photos, documents, archives and videos by their structure, without original names.
Check, preview and save elsewhere
Sort by type and confidence, preview the important files and save them to the destination disk. Results marked as validated have passed an independent check; partial or extracted results may need a closer look.
What a quick format of the wrong drive leaves behind
A quick format writes a new boot sector, a new allocation table and an empty root folder, and marks the rest as free. On FAT32 and exFAT drives, the old folder entries in the data area often survive, so whole folders with names can come back. On NTFS, the new Master File Table overwrites the start of the old one, so some files lose their names and folders while their content usually remains.
If you chose a different file system, for example exFAT where there used to be NTFS, the new structures still take up only a small part of the drive. The old data in the rest of the space can be found by signature search, but the old folder tree is harder to rebuild.
Why the app will not save to the formatted drive
After a format, all the space that holds your old files is marked free. Saving a recovered file onto the same drive writes into exactly that free space and can overwrite the next file you were about to recover. FileFix Ultimate therefore blocks saving to the volume being scanned.
Drive letters D: and E: are often two partitions of the same physical disk. A different partition does not overlap the formatted one, but it shares the same hardware, and if you later need a whole-disk scan the areas do overlap. That is why the app asks you to confirm before saving to another partition of the same disk, and why a separate disk is the better choice.
Mistakes that cost files after a wrong format
Formatting again, to the old file system, in the hope of getting the files back does not work and writes more new structures. Running chkdsk on the formatted drive can also rewrite metadata. Installing a recovery program onto the formatted drive writes files into its free space. Each of these reduces what a scan can find, so do nothing until the files are copied off.
When it won't work
- A full format in Windows Vista or later: every sector of the volume was overwritten with zeros.
- The drive is an SSD; formatting usually sends TRIM for the whole volume, which erases the data.
- Many files were copied onto the drive after the format and overwrote the old ones.
- The formatted volume was BitLocker-encrypted; after a format the encryption metadata is usually gone and the old data cannot be decrypted.
- Files found by signature search come back without their original names and folders.
How FileFix Ultimate helps
- Reads the formatted drive read-only and refuses to save results onto it.
- Rebuilds folders and names from surviving FAT32, exFAT and NTFS records after a quick format.
- Combines this with signature search for 68 file types and shows a confidence level for each result.
- Marks results that contain only zeros as likely unrecoverable, which is the typical sign of a full format or TRIM.
- Free for personal use with no recovery limit, so you can recover everything you find.
FileFix Ultimate is free for personal use, works offline and never writes to the drive you are recovering from. Business use needs a one-year licence per PC. Check the signature before you run it.
Frequently asked questions
Can I undo a format in Windows?
No. Windows has no undo for formatting. After a quick format the old files can often be recovered with a scan, but the drive itself cannot be put back to its previous state.
I only noticed after copying some files onto the formatted drive. Is it too late?
Not necessarily. The copied files overwrote whatever was in the spots they took, but the rest of the drive is untouched. Stop copying now and scan; the less you wrote, the more comes back.
How much free space do I need on the destination?
As much as the files you choose to recover. You do not have to save everything; filter by type or folder and recover the important files first.
How do I avoid formatting the wrong drive next time?
Before formatting, check the drive's label, size and contents in Explorer, and disconnect drives you do not need. Disk Management shows each disk and partition, which makes it easier to see which one you are about to format.