External harddrive question

A while back my 2tb western digital external took a tumble and stopped working.

I brought it in to a local computer shop because I suspected it was the enclosure not the hard drive that was the problem.

I left it with them and they called me at my house ten minutes later to say it was working and "clean" showing 1.81 TB free.

Is there a reason the drive would've wiped?

I just got a new enclosure for it and am currently scanning it with Recuva.

I'm a photographer and about 80% of my library was in there.

 

Like you, I'd have suspected "electronics" or "electricals" rather than the HDD mechanism but, well...

I hope RECUVA works well. There's a good chance it will, at least, because even if they reformatted the drive, that "ten minutes later" says they probably could have only done a Quick Format.

As I understand it, a quick format tells the File Catalog to "go blank" but that's about it. The Format Operation re-writes some critical sectors on any hard disk, but it's always the same critical sectors. Formatting and Disk Startups must use those same sectors. And that's not where Data Files (photos) exist.

So there's a chance that RECUVA or others can return those files for your uses.

But shame on you for ONLY having one backup! Didn't you know this is why God invented DVD burning?!! USB sticks? He sits up there, all day, inventing these things and then heathens won't use them!

Maybe that's why he invented volcanos.

(Of course, that's why I think he invented Politicians - to fill volcanos.)