HELP!!!!! Reformatted but have old hard drive

[Hoosiervb]

I made a mistake and reformatted our Dell laptop. Everything appears to be gone (pictures, music files). A few weeks back the hard drive for this computer crashed and we took it to a specialist who was able to salvage 95% of files. If I still have this hard drive that was removed, does it mean our pictures are still on there?

[geek hoodlum]

Hi and welcome to Computer Hope!

If I still have this hard drive that was removed, does it mean our pictures are still on there?

Yes, it's possible. There are lots of file recovery software out there.

[Hoosiervb]

The gentleman who helped us before said it was time consuming but he salvaged every photo we had.......do you really think it's possible? Would it be best to transfer the data to an external hard drive?

[JJ 3000]

First, don't make any more changes to the computer like save any files. Saving files on that computer can overwrite the old files that you want to recover.

Download Recuva. It is free and it might be able to find your old files.
http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download

[jason2074]

If I still have this hard drive that was removed, does it mean our pictures are still on there?

If he was able to recover files successfully then yes. But how much did it cost you? Wondering how extensive the damage done on the old hard drive. I would personally take home the drive if its still intact.

Would it be best to transfer the data to an external hard drive?

Yes. Portable hard drives, CD/DVD disc, USB flash drives.