When Good Data Goes Bad

Point, Click, and Format

On the sinking-heart scale, discovering that you accidentally formatted your data disk is like finding out that was an iceberg you just hit. Unintentionally formatting media that contains something irreplaceable happens infrequently, but it does occur. You could mean to format a floppy but instead format the Zip disk holding the presentation for tomorrow's summit-conference. Or maybe a malicious virus wipes out your entire hard disk, or renders it unreadable by blowing away the boot sector.

You won't recover a formatted disk's old contents as easily as you would a deleted file--but with most disks, the data is still there, just unreachable through normal means. Fortunately, Norton's UnFormat and McAfee's Disk Minder can bring nearly any formatted disk back from the dead, even if it's undergone Windows' "Full" formatting.

After you calm down, your first step should be to stop using the disk that's been formatted. If it's a floppy or removable disk (like a Zip or Jaz), eject it immediately, and don't reinsert it until you're ready to begin emergency recovery procedures. If it's a hard disk, lock down your PC: Don't shut it off, don't do any work, and make sure nobody else touches it.

Getting your data back shouldn't be too tough, provided you've done a little preparation. The McAfee and Norton utility suites both include a small application called Image, which records the file structure of your hard disk every time you run it. These so-called images function as maps of your disks' data areas. The recovery applications use images stored on the hard drive to restore everything to its earlier, intact status. But you have to make the image before anything bad happens--if you accidentally format an unimaged hard disk, you'll probably be able to recover the lost documents, but you'll definitely need to reinstall Windows and any applications from scratch.

McAfee and Norton also include a utility that creates an emergency boot floppy set. These are not your garden-variety Windows boot disks: They also contain tools that you need in order to recover from a major disk crash or an accidental format. You should create these important disks at the time you install the recovery software. Keep the disks in a safe place: In case you hit that iceberg, you'll need them.

Post-Format Forgiveness

To test both suites' format-recovery capabilities, we fired up an identical pair of Windows 98 PCs, one equipped with McAfee Utilities, the other with Norton Utilities. After creating emergency disk sets, we booted both systems from a DOS floppy, gulped slightly, and typed FORMAT C: /S (to put DOS on the hard disk, making it bootable). A few minutes later, we removed the floppy and restarted the two PCs. Each booted to a C> prompt; typing DIR showed an empty disk.

We then booted from the McAfee and Norton emergency disks and ran Disk Minder and UnFormat. Without an image file, Disk Minder could not restore a single thing. Norton scanned the hard drive for about 11 minutes and could recover most of the files--but the hierarchy of all the directories was completely shot.

Before we ran through the test the second time, we made an image of the hard drives. In just over 2 minutes, McAfee restored the imaged drive to its preformat condition, including all the file icons and directory structures. In an unbelievably speedy process that worked like PC alchemy, Norton's UnFormat took (literally) 5 seconds to do the same thing. Both drives booted up perfectly, with every icon in exactly the right place afterward.

How easy it is to turn back the clock depends on how up-to-date your image file is. You should run your image utility every time you boot your PC. If you keep your machine running constantly, schedule a time to run the program daily.

If your images are out of date, your unformat attempt won't retrieve anything that changed since the last image and may not even restore your system to exactly the way it was the last time an image file was made. But even an out-of-date image gives you a good chance of partial recovery.

SUMMARY

McAfee Utilities PRO: Very low price, good data-recovery abilities. CON: Slower performer than Norton and can be a bit more difficult to use. Street price: $19 McAfee Software 408/988-3832 www.nai.com

SUMMARY

Norton Utilities PRO: The industry standard, easy to use, excellent data-recovery abilities. CON: Can't easily recover data from badly damaged disks. Street price: $50 Symantec 800/441-7234 www.symantec.com