Unformat

Unformat

Unformat is a data recovery software from LSoft Technologies. This utility is ideal for anyone, regardless of their level of experience with data recovery, who needs to unformat hard drive partitions or any other kind of digital storage media which has been accidentally formatted or damaged due to a logical drive failure. It can recover individual files, deleted or damaged partitions and formatted disks or partitions by exploiting the fact that deleted data is not actually permanently deleted until it has been overwritten by another file copy or creation process.

UNFORMAT is a software utility created to solve almost all data loss scenarios due to logical failure. It can recover deleted files on a disk or restore deleted or damaged partitions and volumes. As well as recovers data after using the FORMAT command.

The software supports all file systems which are natively supported by Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh or Linux-based operating systems. The latest edition adds support for more than thirty additional file signatures, and it includes a straightforward script editor which allows advanced users to create custom file signatures for rarer files types.

How do I unformat a hard drive in Windows 10? Is there any unformat freeware that we can use the free unformat utility to unformat drive like portable hdd, hard disk partition, ssd, sd memory card, pen drive etc? When PC, camera, phone sd asks unformatting, or your device has been reformatted by mistake, please stop using the device immediately and download an unformat utility to unformat data at first and then follow the top 4 ways to recover and fix your storage media in this article.

Unformat is the process of data recovery from a storage device (which can be a hard drive, a camera memory card, or an USB pen drive) that was formatted.

The common conception of formatted disks is that once a format operation has been run, a disk is a “blank slate,” with absolutely no residual data left behind. But the notion that formatting a disk irrevocably eradicates all data on the disk is not always accurate. In fact, R-Studio, a powerful data recovery tool, can easily recover important data from most formatted disks. To understand why, let us briefly discuss how files are stored on disks, how computers format disks, and how to “unformat” such a disk to recover the files on it.

To use disk space efficiently, the information about the file and file’s contents are stored on the disk separately. This is similar to an index or table of contents at the beginning or end of a book. On a disk, there is a table that stores information about files, such as filenames, folder paths, creation and modification timestamps and, most importantly, where the actual file content is located on the disk and where it begins and ends. For Windows, there are two supported file systems: FAT and NTFS. The file tables for these systems are called the File Allocation Table (FAT) and Master File Table (MFT), respectively. While there may be some information about the file and folder structure located elsewhere on the disk, the bulk of this type of information is stored in the FAT or MFT.

What Happens When You Format a Disk
When you format a disk, one of two processes will unfold. When a quick format is performed, the system will create a new file table to replace the existing FAT or MFT. The previous file table will be partially or completely overwritten, destroying information such as filenames, folder structure and the physical location of the data, but the data will still be there. This data will remain untouched until it is overwritten by another application.

When a full format is performed, the computer overwrites the table of file records with a new one, as it does with the quick format. Additionally, it will check the disk for bad sectors. A full format is typically recommended in preparation for the installation of a new operating system. Disks that are formatted using Windows XP or earlier version of Windows will leave the data intact. However, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and presumably later versions of Windows will overwrite the entire disk with zeros in order to completely wipe the disk clean, rendering the data irrecoverable.

To review, a format operation primarily deals with the file table, leaving the rest of the data untouched. Disks that have been quick formatted by any operating system or full formatted by Windows XP or earlier can easily be recovered. The key is to run the recovery before the data is overwritten by another application or system operation. Disks that have been full formatted by Windows Vista or later can typically not be recovered.

Note: A full format as performed by Windows Vista and later is also known as a “secure format”, since it completely erases residual data so it cannot be recovered by identity thieves or hackers. If you are looking for a tool that is dedicated to reliable, secure erasures and disk formatting, try R-Wipe & Clean.

Unformatting a Disk with R-Studio
R-Studio uses a revolutionary technology called IntelligentScan (UNFORMAT) in order to scan formatted disks for current and previously existing partitions on a disk. Once detected, R-Studio can effectively “unformat” the disk so you can once again access the files and data located on the partition. R-Studio is able to recognize the file system that existed prior to a format, even if it has been formatted to a new file system. For example, if you reformat an NFTS partition as a FAT32 partition, R-Studio will be able to discover both file systems after performing a scan. Recognized partitions can be processed like real logical disks, allowing you to recover files from them.

Additionally, R-Studio features a “raw file search” that allows it to search for known file types, such as Microsoft Word documents or JPEG files from a digital camera, based on their file signatures. This is useful in cases where the partition cannot be recognized, but the data is still present on the disk. R-Studio will scan the disk for common data patterns and recover the crucial parts of the files, in spite of the filenames and folder structure being irretrievably lost.

R-Studio’s powerful file recovery and unformat technology is overlain with an extremely user-friendly interface. Recognized partitions that have been recovered are color-coded to distinguish them from current partitions. In most cases, the partition you are looking for will be shown in yellow. You can also see the partition’s file system, start point and size to verify that it is the partition you wish to recover. You can also preview individual files found on the partition to further ensure that it contains the important data that you are looking for.

As mentioned above, R-Studio also includes an Extra Search for Known File Types feature that can be used as a last resort if partitions cannot be recognized. This can be utilized by simply checking the appropriate box before beginning the scan, as illustrated below. You may read more about R-Studio’s features in the article “File Recovery Software. Why R-Studio?”.

To demonstrate how R-Studio can unformat a disk, this tutorial will walk you through the recovery of a disk that has been reformatted from NTFS to FAT32. In this example, the logical disk that we’ll be scanning is F:\.