Please assist me in resolving this issue.I formatted one hard drive that contains vital data but before i did this,i made backup of these data on flash drive and i made sure that all the data were safe.But when i was true with the installation,i tried to copy back the documents on the flash to the hard drive and it copied.And i tried to view the contents of the folder copied but nothing was there but when you place your mouse pointer on the folder,it will show the size of the content.
I tried using demo 2000( data recovering software) but to no avail.I'm still on it now and i need to recover these documents because it contains some published books and some projects;both past and present.
Thanks for assisting me.

I think u copied the problem along with ur files while backing up.

I'll advice u meet data recovery professionals. So many of them in Lagos. Recovering data from disks is a technical stuffs- sometimes it requires u freezing ur disk et all.
Stop working on it to avoid permanent damage cuzz data recovery is never guarantee. it depends on the state of ur disc. Sometimes not all d files can be recovered. pm me if u need contacts.

Here is a link to a data recovery service in Nigeria

recovering data from formatted hard drive is not fully guaranteed. for illustration purposes, lets assume you have a 5 MB hard drive each MB lets say its a cell. you have data occupying the first 3MB/cells. you format the drive the data still remains. if u reinstall applications operating systems etc what you were expecting to recover could possibly be over written because the new items will be allocated to the spaces randomly. defragmenting will re arrange. and over write what you intended to recover.

Sometimes you get back some things, sometimes you loose. the best suggest is to get a big hard drive and do regular backups.

@francisgoshen
You forget to tell us what made you format your hard drive,

Yeah! U don't just format your hard disk just like that. Formatting the hard disk should be the last resort. What of if the problem had been software related?

hey, just saw this post...
can help with the data recovery if you havent done it already..

hey i'v got a powerful recovery software.it will get it done=scan all sectorx n all of ur hard disk.

@kidgenious how it works

well i think you should realise your mind because disaster recovery is just be lucky.
i will advise you to try the flash drive on another systems because some system don't support high speed flash drive, i'm speaking from experiences.

lets see, you copied data from your flash drive. . . but you cannot view the folder contents, though it does occupy some space.

Quick diagnostic questions:

1) File System of your machine before format

2) File System of machine after format

- if these are not compatible, you may just be experiencing this issue

Next Step

1) Try looking at the files on another machine. Unless you are a government agent who is sworn to keep this data secret. . . you must be me if you did not go somewhere else and try looking at the data on your flash drive.

Think about this while you are going to a friends computer

1) Did you verify that you actually copied the data and could view the files on your flash drive?
2) Are there other files on your flash drive which open fine?


If this fails, you are approaching some serious Sh*t
1) In unix, you could look at the data byte by byte. . .really bit by bit if you really wanted to, if the data is that important, and you have a thorough knowledge of the file types that were there, you can reconstruct missing hearder information or corrupt information which could keep them from showing up on your desktop

If You are At this Step
- unless you have lots of money to spend and this is super important to you, you are screwed. Give up, tear your hair, and go about your business. You will not recover this data without having to spend lots of money. There is NO freely available anything that would do this. Anyone with the knowhow to do this knows the value of their knowledge.

Hey Disk Investigator is what u need, heres what it does:

Disk Investigator helps you to discover all that is hidden on your computer hard disk. It can also help you to recover lost data. Display the true drive contents by bypassing the operating system and directly reading the raw drive sectors. View and search raw directories, files, clusters, and system sectors. Verify the effectiveness of file and disk wiping programs. Undelete previously deleted files.

For other great software and more details visit:

http://users.boardnation.com/~jalalsforum/index.php?board=7;action=display;threadid=7

From indication, you copied your documents to a bad (fake) flash drive. Probably cannot be gotten from the flash anymore. Resort to recovering data from the original hard drive (even though it is formatted). Recovery experts can sort it out. My guy is Alfred and u can give him a call on 01-7764253, 08034037329.
DONT LOSE HOPE BRO.

I had a similar situation. I lost my family photos for I format my disk carelessly. At that time, I do want to kill myself. Some friends recommend my one data recovery software, thx god, I get them all back. Now, I use the free backup tool to backup them. Some photos on our computer, like the pictures of our family are very precious for us. If someday they lost just because we format the disk or delete them carelessly, we will feel very sad. So backup our precious data is important. We can use the tool in the windows or some free software to backup them.
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-formatted-partition.htm