Outch....

I am a computer tech, so I can say, that based on my experience he should not put too much hope on recovering his lost data, if the tech guy did a full format that will be probably impossible, except if ther new technique I am not aware of.. basically, a fast format will clean the index table, it a little like, like the index in a book it tell the computer where to go tho get the info he needed for a file, the data is still on the disk, and if you are lucky it will have be writes on consecutive sector and possibly recoverable, but if the info was fragmented, that could be rely hard to find the missing piece of the file.

Your friend should ask the tech, who perform the format, what type he used, if he did a full formal, that will be nearly impossible to recover anything, and it will probably be only a wast of money...

Any way, one thing is sure he should definitively stop using this HD in is computer, have it remove immediately to prevent future re-write of data on it, he need to restart on a new HD

I hove he could recover some of is data. and could use some basic good practice like keeping your operating system and data on separate disk or partition and backup thos data frequently on other media like external HD, on DVD-rom or via a cloud storage service.

It wasn't a tech who did the format, it was his nephew. No idea how thorough of a format he did.

Yeah, I am a firm believer in backups too.

Dominus tecum

hoooo ok.. well it maybe playing in your friend favor... the kid probably did not wish to wait for the many hour it take for a full format, so ther still a chance to recover some stuff, if he do not play anymore with his HD

That's pretty much what we're hoping.

Dominus tecum

I find this that could be interesting for you friend.

https://download.cnet.com/R-Studio-.....-10061966.html

It a software that could be used to recover data event from a format disk... at least if it not a hard format i guess

I find this on a tech video about recovering on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyr14_B230o

the interesting part is about 14:15

Okay thanks, I've passed it along.

Dominus tecum

Oh dear, that's terrible.... This is why I have three copies of everything. And I still lose stuff.

Me too.

Dominus tecum

I post copies of my stuff on my media pages, but ya that's rough. I also don't let anybody touch my computer, but I don't know if that's an option for him?

He'd been away at the time visiting other furs when it happened. He lives with his sister's family; I don't know whether there was anything he could have done to prevent the kid from using his computer.

Dominus tecum