Hard disk drives are available in various shapes and sizes. The storage capacity of these hard drives also varies from several gigabytes to several terabytes. There are different kinds of hard drives like SATA / SCSI / ATA / IDE. All these hard drives have their own respective storage designs and algorithms that stores and retrieves data in different patterns. Most of the hard drives are connected to the CPU, to store operating system files and other data like files, folders, office documents, movies, videos, audio files, images, etc.
In Windows, hard drives can be formatted based on the Windows file system. Windows Operating System has FAT (File Allocation Table) and NTFS (New Technology File System) file systems. NTFS is more advanced and highly developed file system as compared to FAT file system. When a hard disk is made available for the first time use or when we reinstall Windows, the OS formats hard discs completely before using it. There are many reasons for the hard disk to be formatted. Some of the most commonly known reasons for formatting the hard disk drives are as follows:
- Reinstalling OS: There are many reasons for re-installing the operating system. One among them is reinstalling OS when the system files become corrupt or when the OS doesn’t boot and crashes. In these scenarios we re-install the operating system and while reinstalling we may accidentally format a different drive or partition resulting in loss of data
- File System Conversion: Windows 7 and Vista comes with NTFS file system. However, Windows XP and most of the other pen drives still come with FAT file system. Hence, while trying to convert FAT to NTFS file system, we may accidentally format the drive or partition without taking the backup, thereby resulting in loss of data from the hard disk drive
- Corruption: Corruption in the system files causes operating system to crash. Corruption in other files makes the drive inaccessible thereby resulting in accessibility of the drive or partition. In such scenarios we format the hard disk drive which erases all the bad or corrupt files and makes the drive accessible for use
In Windows, partitions can be formatted using disk management utilities. Accidentally formatting a wrong drive or partition results in loss of data. In such scenarios, do not think that the data is lost forever. Data lost from formatted drives can be recovered using hard drive partition recovery software. There are many drive recovery softwares, one among them, which is highly rated and reviewed by industry experts is Remo Recovery (Windows) data recovery software. This software is capable of recovering data from formatted or deleted partitions and supports both FAT and NTFS partition recovery. This software can be installed on Windows 7, XP, Vista, 2003 and 2008 on both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems. Once the software is installed, you can follow the simple steps provided in the software and perform the recovery process easily and efficiently.