Windows 10: Formatted my external hard drive with WIndows 11 Installation Media and trying to recover files

I have tried to install a clean version of Windows 11 on my computer. I have missed the portions within the guide I used and downloading the Installation files onto the hard drive will format the entire drive. I used my external hard drive as I could not find any suitable other USB device for this and noticed my mistake once I have already done and made the mistake. I've also deleted the installation files as I had an error and the installation could not be done. I looked up a few questions to try to see if I can find solutions to the problem. As the drive has been reduced to a 32 GB drive or

:)

 

Will formatting a hard drive remove missing files Im trying to recover?

I wanted to clean install Windows 11 then I installed the "Media Creation Tool" then I selected my hard drive as the location where it would put the installed (I think). But I realized all the files were gone, now Im trying the recover it using an app and the hard drive is now 30gb instead of 2tb. Ive searched on Google on how to revert it and it says that formatting it would fix it. But Im not sure if the files Im trying to recover would be gone too which I dont want.

 

saving and viewing files on an external hard drive

Hi Sam,

We appreciate you for being part of Windows 10.

Yes, you may format the external hard drive. Follow the below steps.

• 
  Connect the external hard drive to Windows 10 computer.
  
• 
  Press Windows + E keys on the keyboard to the keyboard to open the file explorer.
  
• 
  Locate the external hard drive on left navigation pane in File explorer.
  
• 
  Right click on the external hard drive and click on
  Format.
  
• 
  Click Start and follow on screen instructions to format the hard drive.
  

I hope the above information helps. Kindly let us know if you need any further assistance with Windows. We are glad to assist you.

Thank you.

 

Recover files from Flash drive

Does not work on a windows pc which is what the OP probably intended

windows by default does not have HFS and HFS+ based hard drives.
Able to perform retrieval on both HFS and HFS+ based hard drives. and so will not work with windows

thanks for the effort