Help and advice needed about formatted drive recovery.

**Rob-H** · January 16th, 2012, 05:43 AM

Hi there, I've scoured the web high and low and you guys are my last resort

Around about 1998 I was using a hard drive based music recording console called a Fostex DMT8-VL. To cut a long story short, it uses the same principal as recording via sound card onto your computer, as is the norm these days.
At the end of the recording project, I formatted the EIDE drive in preparation for another project that never materialised. Hence, the machine was mothballed to a cupboard.
My question is this: do you think it is possible to recover the recorded files from the formatted drive? Nothing has ever been recorded on it since it was formatted. The files I think were in WAV format.
The machine itself uses something called FDMS-2 (Fostex Data Management System) for the file system or disk format.
I have spoke to a 'techy' at Fostex who dismissed the idea of being able to recover the files, but my colleague at work who used to work in IT years ago reckons I've been fobbed off. My understanding from reading other forum posts is that it is possible that the files are still intact somewhere in a partition on that drive.
I'd like to re-mix the songs that were recorded if I could recover these files. The machine is now with a friend in storage over 100 miles away, so I'm just asking your experienced opinion of whether or not, in principal, these files should still be intact. I'd kind of given up hope a while ago after the guy at Fostex spoke to me, but it keeps bugging me

Kind thanks
Rob

**Steve R Jones** · January 16th, 2012, 06:37 AM

Recuva (pronounced "recover") is a freeware Windows utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players. It will even bring back files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses!
Redirecting...

**howste** · January 16th, 2012, 10:43 AM

Theoretically it should be possible. With common file systems in use (NTFS, FAT) "deleting" a file doesn't really delete the file, but it just deletes the first character of the file name in a table that tells the system where the data is located. Software that can directly access the hard drive and look at the table can find the files and thus find the files on the disk.

Practically speaking though, with an obscure file system like that, it's unlikely there are recovery tools readily available to recover the information. You could try programs similar to the one Steve linked to, but they may not read the non-standard file system you have. You might have to pay a recovery service to get the data.

**stroyal** · January 16th, 2012, 12:49 PM

I was going through my bookmarks last night and came accost this.
TestDisk - CGSecurity

I don't remember how I found it, or anything about it, so try Steve's first.
You will have the same problem that hoste mentioned though.

**Rob-H** · January 19th, 2012, 12:45 PM

Thanks for your help folks, but I contacted Fostex Japan and got the following reply below from them

Dear Sir,

Thanks for your email.
This is Satoshi working at Fostex Japan customer service department.

When formatting the hard disk drive, DMT-8VL executes the physical
format, not the quick format.
You may recall that it took a while to format the hard disk drive.
Thus, all data after formatting are gone at all and it is not possible
to restore data.
I am sorry that we cannot fulfill your request.

Thank you and best regards,

**stroyal** · January 19th, 2012, 01:06 PM

Unless the full format, in question, is different from every other format, and wrights 0s to the drive, as it is formating, that tech doesn't have a clue.

The parts of the drive that a full format doesn't wright to, won't loose data, and there is a lot ,not written to, with a full format.

If that was true, why would secure erasing involve writing 0s to the drive, as many as 5 times, if all you need to do is format.

**stroyal** · January 19th, 2012, 01:22 PM

I notice this is not a computer, so it could be different, but if it is a regular hard drive, you have nothing to loose by trying.

As I said, I have never heard, of a full format, that erases data, other than the areas it writes to for the format.

I don't think even a low level format erases data, if you have the right recovery tools.

The only guaranteed way to keep someone from recovering data off an old hard drive, is to physically destroy it.
Drill holes in it, or smash it with a sledge hammer.

**Rob-H** · January 20th, 2012, 05:35 AM

Thanks so much for your replies here. I do remember speaking on the phone to a guy at Fostex last year who said something along the lines of writing 0,s to the drive as it was formatting, so that kind of ties in with what you are saying Stroyal. He seemed to be implying that it was a different kind of format than a regular computer one but I didn't really understand what he was saying.
I suppose I could get the drive out of the machine when I'm next at the old friend's place and at least have a go. Does anybody on here do data good recovery services that's recommended?

**Steve R Jones** · January 20th, 2012, 05:51 AM

You're probably looking at several hundred dollars for a service company to attempt the recovery.

**Taxmancometh** · January 20th, 2012, 06:22 PM

I formatted my drive once and was able to recover the drive again. I can't remember the program I used though. If that format does indeed writes 0's to the drive while it is formatting then your screwed.