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dbnoll03 · March 8th, 2009, 03:59 AM

Hi all, it has been quite a while since I've posted here (nearly 5 years I think), but I have got myself into quite a pickle that warrants a return to the best tech support community IMO.

Recently while preparing to dispose of two of my computers, I wiped the hard drives of both using the free version of Active Killdisk. I executed a "one pass zeroes" wipe after backing up nearly 200 GB of files to my external hard drive.

This afternoon I turned on my new computer and plugged in my external hard drive intending to restore my files to my new computer only to be shocked with the message "The disk in drive X is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?" While my I admit my heart jumped, I didn't break out in a full fledged panic (yet) because I had seen this before and was able to fix it. Well this time I was not so lucky...

I scanned the disk with Active Uneraser with no success. Blank. In fact, a look at the sectors indicated mostly zeros....hmmm. So now I am officially panicking. My only guess is that I inadvertently wiped the external hard drive along with the other two, although I'm still not sure how that happened. The backup contained my only copy of nearly 10 years of personal documents, music, and photos (I don't even want to talk about the business QuickBooks files.)

What can I do (if anything)? Is it even possible to recover files after executing a "one pass zeroes" wipe? Is it worth hiring a professional for the job? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

March 8th, 2009, 03:59 AM	#1 (permalink)
dbnoll03 Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: San Luis Obispo, CA Posts: 23	Killdisk Nightmare Hi all, it has been quite a while since I've posted here (nearly 5 years I think), but I have got myself into quite a pickle that warrants a return to the best tech support community IMO. Recently while preparing to dispose of two of my computers, I wiped the hard drives of both using the free version of Active Killdisk. I executed a "one pass zeroes" wipe after backing up nearly 200 GB of files to my external hard drive. This afternoon I turned on my new computer and plugged in my external hard drive intending to restore my files to my new computer only to be shocked with the message "The disk in drive X is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?" While my I admit my heart jumped, I didn't break out in a full fledged panic (yet) because I had seen this before and was able to fix it. Well this time I was not so lucky... I scanned the disk with Active Uneraser with no success. Blank. In fact, a look at the sectors indicated mostly zeros....hmmm. So now I am officially panicking. My only guess is that I inadvertently wiped the external hard drive along with the other two, although I'm still not sure how that happened. The backup contained my only copy of nearly 10 years of personal documents, music, and photos (I don't even want to talk about the business QuickBooks files.) What can I do (if anything)? Is it even possible to recover files after executing a "one pass zeroes" wipe? Is it worth hiring a professional for the job? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.