There are a few ways to undelete files after formating a Hard drive or deleting files, however note that while you might not be able to restore 100% of your files, you should be able to retrieve a few critical files or pictures.It is important to not write any files to the hard drive at this time. Writing files to your Hard Drive after deleting files or formatting a hard drive will reduce the amount of files you can recover. Since the Buffalo Ministation is an external hard drive, the process becomes easier than if this were an internal drive. First off, plug the Buffalo Ministation into any USB port into your computer. Second, download
Recuva. (Recuva is a free software that helps recover deleted files.) Install Recuva. 1) Close all other programs2) Open Recuva3) The Recuva Wizard will now appear. Click Next4) You can now choose which file type you want to recover. Music files, image files, any files , etc. Click next when you made your choice.5) Now you have to choose the location of the external Hard drive. If you don't know which drive letter is assigned to the the external hard drive, choose "On my media card or iPod". This will scan all external drives and devices. Alternatively, you can go to the start menu and click "My computer". When the my computer window shows up, you will see your external hard drive and a drive letter. Once you find what the drive letter is, go back to recuva and choose "In a specific location". Then click the Browse button and click the drive letter assigned to your external drive. Click next.6) Click next on this final window. 7) The scan will now begin. Wait until the scan is over. Once the scan has completed, a list of files and their file names will appear. Next to the Filenames are icons with different colors. These colors indicate the state of the deleted file, and how well the restored condition will be. Green means the file will be perfectly intact, orange means there might be some corruption, red generally means the file may not be recovered. At this point in time you can choose which files you would like to recover. If you want to attempt to recover all files, click the the check box right next to the Filename box.8) When you have finished selecting your files to recover, click "Recover" towards the lower right corner of the screen.9) A box asking where you want to send the recovered files will appear. Click Desktop and make a new folder there. Call it what ever you want. Select the folder and click OK.10) When the operation is done, a dialog box will appear telling you how long it took. 11) Check the files you have just recovered in the folder you made on the desktopVoila, your files should be ready to be viewed. If there were files you wanted to recover that did not show up the first time, go back to step 6 and click "Deep Scan". That will take a lot longer, but should find files that did not appear before. Follow the rest of the guide as normal from step 6 onwards.
