Computing advice needed.
 

I know there are a lot of very tech-savvy people on this forum, so I thought I'd ask this question publicly.

Has anyone had real success in restoring any data from a (mistakenly) formatted hard drive? If so, which software was used?

:O

I'm no expert but I think it depends what sort of format was completed. From what I understand during a fast format the data remains more or less untouched, it's just the drives directory of where everything is that's deleted, which should be recoverable. If the drive had a full secure format, i.e. the whole drive is overwritten with 1's or 0's, then you're pretty much scr@wed. Good luck!

Thanks for that - I'll check on the type of format.

Check out Easeus Data Recovery. It's not free, but it's worked for me in the past. There are many other tools at various pricing points.

And don't install anything on the drive in the meantime :-)

I've used this one successfully
 

Data Recovery Software. RAID, Hard Drive, File, Win and Mac Data Recovery Software. Free Trial!
it is not free and does need an internet connection.

What ever you do stop applying power to the drive until you pick a software or take it to a vendor. The more spinning that the drive does before then the more data you risk destroying