Forensic recovery

[Phoenix21]

Would like to know can a forensic recovery be done if the laptop has been restored to factory setting?

[WAWood]

@Phoenix21 

IF you're asking if Forensic tools can recover data even after a factory reset -- the answer is YES.

Factory Reset only reformats the drive, and while this erases all existing files and folders, it does not actually overwrite them -- so basically, they are still there.  It's just that Windows can no longer "see" them.

Forensic tools know how to reconstruct file and folder headers, so they can access any that have not actually been overwritten.

[Phoenix21]

What would I need to do or how can I search for this among forums and thxs for helping me. 

[WAWood]

@Phoenix21 

Hp does not provide any Forensic Tools -- and the bigger question is what you are needing to do with them.

Actual such tools are only available to law enforcement agencies, so you can't just go out on the net and download them.

However, if what you really want to do is recovery files from a formatted drive, you would first have to remove the current drive from the laptop and connect it to a working PC, because you can't recover to the original drive.

Then you need to do the following:
1) Download and install this utility on a working PC http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/recover_data_in_3_steps_with_minitool_power_data_recovery_free_...
2) Run the data recovery utility to see what can be retrieved from the old drive.

If that tool does not find what you need, an alternative is Recuva http://www.piriform.com/recuva

And, if that does not work well, the best tool out there is this one, but only the trial version is free http://www.file-recovery.com/