A reader's "aaaargh!" moment

Stephen Yale had what he aptly describes as an "aaaargh!" moment:

I had a 750GB external USB drive connected [to my PC]. I inserted a small 32MB thumb drive to reformat from NTFS to FAT32 and use as a boot disk. I went through the process of formatting the drive whilst talking to a colleague on the telephone. Inadvertently, I formatted the 750GB external USB drive instead of the thumb drive. Aaaargh!

What can I do — if anything — to recover the data from the drive? Am I hosed or is there a chance of recovery?

Don't feel too bad, Stephen. Anyone who works on PCs long enough will — sooner or later — reformat the wrong drive or partition. I confess: I've done it, too!

In fact, the increasing use of digital cameras is making this type of error more common. You see, when you "initialize" a camera's memory, you're really formatting a solid-state hard drive. (Most cameras use utterly standard FAT16 or FAT32 disk formatting.)

People who would never reformat a PC's drive will almost surely "initialize" or reformat a digital camera's solid-state drive many times over the years they own the device. Sooner or later, almost everyone will have a reformatting "aaaargh" moment!

In fact, it's becoming common enough that I made the answer to this letter (above) the lead item in my WindowsSecrets column this week. The other items:

• Are CCleaner's system scrubs too thorough? (I believe they are.)
  
  
• Power-supply dilemma: adding a combo UPS/PSU? (Bad idea. I'll tell you why, and what I use instead.)
  
  
• Windows activation for no reason? (Plus: Why the Black helicopters are landing 0n my lawn! :-) )

And, of course, there's lots more full-length content from the other columnists, too.

You can also rate each column (there's a poll at the end) to let me know how I'm doing. And you can use the "contact" info there to send in questions you might like me to try answering in future columns.

The "Plus" content is available on an honor-system basis: You pay only what you think the content is worth; there's no set fee. Whatever you decide to kick in covers you for an entire year.

More info on the free version (which you sign up for first) and the honor-system Plus version (with my column): https://windowssecrets.com/

Your support there helps me keep me off the streets. :-)

Thanks