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Possible Duplicate:
Recover data loss from accidental quick format
Are there any good free undelete tools for Windows? [closed]
Formatted hard drive, forgot to back up a text file. How do I get it back?
recover partition after reinstall windows XP

I have accidentally installed Windows 8 on a partition containing photos and documents. The partition is large so Windows may not have overwritten most files. How do I go about getting those documents back?

Is it even possible?

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  • If you don't know how now, I suspect you'd be best off taking it to a professional.
    – Xavierjazz
    Jan 22, 2013 at 3:08
  • I know I need some kind of low level disk scanning software, I wanted to get recommendations about which one to use.
    – tomm89
    Jan 22, 2013 at 3:10
  • This might help.
    – terdon
    Jan 22, 2013 at 3:56
  • 1
    Hope u are not booting into the windows.. Get a live CD, every time you log in, potentially files might be getting wiped..
    – Karthik T
    Jan 22, 2013 at 4:54
  • Questions for software recommendations are off topic, sorry. There are lots of tools to try, and asking for a list of all of them is considered subjective and not a good fit for Super User.
    – slhck
    Jan 22, 2013 at 9:03

1 Answer 1

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I would suggest TestDisk which, while not having a GUI (Graphical User Interface), is free and works well.

If a GUI is important to you, consider recuva. I haven't used it, but have read favourable reviews. It also should be free.

Remember that you will need to recover files to another HDD (whether internal or external) so as not to overwrite the data you are trying to recover. You should not recover to the other partition on your harddrive which you have installed Windows on.

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