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Is it possible to recover data after formatting?

J

jas5279

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 21, 2016
67
9
So, I was under the impression that once a hard drive is formatted, the data is gone permanently. But when I Googled, there seemed to be many softwares claiming to recover data from a formatted hard disk.

My concern is that I just sold a Macbook Pro 13" late-2017 with SSD. I formatted the hard drive and then re-installed the OS, before giving it away. Has this removed my data completely? Or will someone still be able to recover my data if they wanted to? Now, after Googling and seeing all those recovery softwares, I'm concerned about my data.

Edit: Adding exact model.
 
Last edited:
Was this a Mac with a SSD or HDD? If the former, you will be fine. If the latter, someone with specific knowledge, equipment and time might could extrapolate some files but, that is a big might. In other words, I wouldn't worry over it, if it were my Mac.
 
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Erasing just removes the index to files unless you do a 7-way secure erase if it is a spinner.
 
IowaLynn said:
Erasing just removes the index to files unless you do a 7-way secure erase if it is a spinner.
Click to expand...
Or...you're as unlucky as the guy I read about today in the NYT who lost $30 Million (?) of Bitcoin because his 'friend' reformatted and he lost his Keys!!!!
 
Apple_Robert said:
Was this a Mac with a SSD or HDD? If the former, you will be fine. If the latter, someone with specific knowledge, equipment and time might could extrapolate some files but, that is a big might. In other words, I wouldn't worry over it, if it were my Mac.
Click to expand...
Yes, it was MBP 13" 2017 with a SSD.
 
I've successfully "unformatted" drives, both HDD and solid state on several occasions. No skill is required, just the ability to read and follow directions in the many Linux and Windows tools available. Never tried on an encrypted drive, so no idea how that would behave. Full drive encryption slows things down and increases the possiblity of data loss too much for me to ever bother with it.

Zero filling or "full" formatting a drive makes a simple recovery not possible. 7 pass is overkill and accomplishes nothing on a solid state drive other than wearing it out quicker.
 
When I sold my 2012 I enabled FileVault prior to wiping it and reinstalling the OS. I also sold it to someone I know...
 
Indeed a 7-pass erase is not necessary unless you have some very, very confidential data in which case you should probably just decimate the drive when you're ready to dispose of it. 1 pass of zeros is enough for the majority of user situations.
 
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