I accidently formatted my extern HD, is it possible to save the data?

Gamleby wrote:

I bought one more extern HD yesterday and wanted to format it before I use it but I accidently formatted the old HD. Is it possible to get the files back?

We advocate for— "3-2-1 Backup Strategy: three copies of your data, two different methods, and one offsite."

Try the "consumer grade" DataRescue5 https://www.prosofteng.com/mac-data-recovery/

or

Other professional data recovery service such as:

Ontrack Data a Professional Data Recovery Service: https://www.ontrack.com/

Drive Savers https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/


vendors provide free estimates and both are recommended by Apple.

Always work from a copy, you do not want to risk further damage the original files or drive.

Stop using that drive now.

Formatting does not exactly erase everything, so most of the data is still there.

If the data on it is important, there are companies that specialize in data recovery. It is unlikely to be cheap, but it should work.

I presume there is no backup?

There used to be various utilities that could recover data (it wasn't pretty and had done things such as lose all file names and type associations) but I don't remember if they worked with a reformatted drive or just corrupt ones. It also depends upon the kind of drive (HDD or SSD) and how much you are willing to pay a data recovery service (BIG bucks).