Recover a Formatted Drive - RMF v4, Quick Steps

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This article describes how to use Recover My Files v4 software to recover files when:

• a drive has been formatted;
• a drive has been formatted and Windows has been reinstalled;
• a Windows recovery or system restore has resulted in a fresh installation of Windows and user crated files are now missing;
• the drive is recognized by your PC as RAW and not files can be read;
• or some other problem has effected the entire contents of the drive.

(This is the quick step article - To read the more detailed version of this article - click here)

1. Download and install the latest version of Recover My Files v4
   
   
2. Click on the "Recover Drive" icon. Click Next.
   
   
3. Select the "Hard Disk" to search. Click Next;
   
   
4. Select "Automatic" mode - or if you do not have the pre-selected filetypes on the drive, manually select file types (do not add more than 10). Click Start;
   
   
5. Phase 1, Partition Recovery: will take less than 1 hour. Examine the partitions found in the results screen to locate yoru files. If you find them, stop the search and save them;
   
   
6. Phase 2, Search for Filesystem record: is a sequential search of your entire drive for select file types;
   
   
   

   You can speed up the search at this point by doing the following:
   
   Near the progress bar you will see "Filesystem Records = #". When a FAT or MFT (a table containing the name and folder information of all files on the drive) is located, the "Filesystem Records" number will increase very quickly to a very high number. Each Filesystem records represents a file with its full file and folder name. The average hard drive has between 75,000 and 150,000 files on it. When the Filesystem records number reaches a very high number, stops increasing, and remains constant, you can press the STOP button (on your average home PC you should reach this point within 2 hours of searching). The search will STOP, the results will build and display in "Folder" view of the results screen.

   
   
   
7. In the top left hand window of the Folder tab of the results screen you should see your old folder structure. Expand the folders with the + sign next to them and look for relevant files. You can also use the File, Date or Find tabs to look for specific files within the search results.
   
   
8. In the right hand top window of the results screen, click on the files found to preview their content in the bottom preview window. When you find what you are looking for, put a tick next to the file or folder to mark it to be saved (you can see the total number and volume of files selected in the bottom bar of the main program screen). To select groups of files, hold down the SHIFT or CTRL key, highlight the files with your mouse, and then press the SPACE BAR to turn the ticks on (or off).
   
   
9. Press the SAVE FILES button to save the files. You must purchase and enter a product activation key into the program before you can save files. Files MUST be saved to another drive, which can be a hard drive, usb, CD, DVD, or Network drive.
   

If the "Complete Format Recover" does not work for you, the next type of search to try is a "Complete File Search" of the drive letter, for your specific file type.