Yes! Let me explain.
A colleague has hundreds of images stored on a Windows FAT32 drive.
He attaches the drive to a MacBook Pro running Monterey.
He then formats the drive. Yes. He formats it. Probably in APFS.
Realizing his error, he unplugs the drive. He wants know:
Is there any recovery utility that will nonetheless locate the image files and copy them out?
MacBook Pro
Here is one of many articles describing a tool that may be able to recover files from the formatted drive. https://www.cleverfiles.com/howto/recover-formatted-hdd.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiAlKmeBhCkARIsAHy7WVsPYO3ZrBDViHK1QsQHTHKdGZ2SUhlqZds_yzJoSHV_JKUADjASkAUaAoDPEALw_wcB.
As ever these tools are often free to download and scan, but might cost to actually reclaim data. Finding one that is truly free to use, or at least comes within an acceptable budget, might require searching around. As long as the data hasn't been overwritten it should be recoverable with the right tool. Typically formatting just builds the core structure for the data on the drive and the root folder, but doesn't zero out the existing data on the disk.
tt2
Here is one of many articles describing a tool that may be able to recover files from the formatted drive. https://www.cleverfiles.com/howto/recover-formatted-hdd.html?gclid=Cj0KCQiAlKmeBhCkARIsAHy7WVsPYO3ZrBDViHK1QsQHTHKdGZ2SUhlqZds_yzJoSHV_JKUADjASkAUaAoDPEALw_wcB.
As ever these tools are often free to download and scan, but might cost to actually reclaim data. Finding one that is truly free to use, or at least comes within an acceptable budget, might require searching around. As long as the data hasn't been overwritten it should be recoverable with the right tool. Typically formatting just builds the core structure for the data on the drive and the root folder, but doesn't zero out the existing data on the disk.
tt2
Thanks. It appears that a rescue in this situation is "possible", but he will need to try a 3rd-party utility. None of those in the App Store (including Disk Drill) gets a review better than 3 stars, most only 1 star. I had success years ago with one named FileSalvage, but that is no longer supported.
Recover Windows Files from Mac Drive
