Any best practices/things to keep in mind when approaching data recovery? is my approach correct?

[chestbox]

I have a late 2012 iMac, of which it’s internal HHD just died and 650+gigs were deleted somehow. Now I am running everything of a bootable external SSD, have the internal HD still inside the iMac and am now looking into how to recover my data.
After reading about this for a few days, I understood that the most important thing is to not have any file being overwritten. Assuming I don’t manually drag any file to the HD, can this somehow happen? given I’m running everything of a bootable external SSD, could some log files or whatever still be created or am I safe when it comes to this?
In terms of actual software, I’ve come to the conclusion that looking for anything free is basically useless and the best option is to let most good software out there do a scan and based on the results/what shows the most retrievable data would be what I’d end up paying for. Is this the best approach? Can multiple scans, or having multiple software installed somehow mess with things? i’m thinking of the most recommended (disk drill, easeUS, disk warrior, etc).
Lastly, is time a factor? Or, as long as the drive remains unchanged, is there no difference in me retrieving my data tomorrow or next month? Honestly knowing this would calm me down a lot, for budget reasons.

Anything I have not brought up that should be kept in mind, or any recommendations?

I really appreciate any feedback

 

[960design]

"Died" how? "Deleted" how?
Two separate instances that do not make sense to me.
2012? May I assume platter type drive?
A hard drive motor failure will not delete data. A hard drive actuator failure can destroy data.

There are many amazing free tools to possibly recover your drive: search for Kali Linux recovery


FYI
Data loss happens to everyone, not everyone has a robust data recovery plan.
Apple has an excellent level one recovery plan for your 650GB+. iCloud costs for that much data is about $120US per year ( you get up to 2TB ). Just something to think about, for next time.

PS Good luck!

 

[chestbox]

Had to force quit all my apps at one point and it wouldn't boot anymore and then had less data.
According to apple it's a 1TB 5400-rpm hard drive
The data appears to be recoverable, easeUS already finished it's scan and indeed basically my entire folder structure is there. The drive as is still shows 655gb as available storage though, so it was made unaccessable somehow
Appreciate the recomendation, will look into it as i have not heard of kali linux recovery yet

 

[960design]

Had to force quit all my apps at one point and it wouldn't boot anymore and then had less data.
According to apple it's a 1TB 5400-rpm hard drive
The data appears to be recoverable, easeUS already finished it's scan and indeed basically my entire folder structure is there. The drive as is still shows 655gb as available storage though, so it was made unaccessable somehow
Appreciate the recomendation, will look into it as i have not heard of kali linux recovery yet

Seems like you just lost boot sector. Easy to recover, but do it as soon as possible. Scans should only read data, so should be safe as long as drive is no longer mounted as primary.

SideNote:
easeUS is Chinese based software company. Your data is no longer private.

 

[chestbox]

easeUS is Chinese based software company. Your data is no longer private.

LOL holy **** are you serious?
please tell me of other companies/software to stay away from

edit: i think it is no longer mounted as primary, as everything runs of the ssd. it's set as the main drive to always boot from. and appreciate the input, you just cought me off guard with your side note

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

Tell us what happens NOW when you boot from your external SSD.

When you get to the finder, is the internal drive "there" on the desktop (even though it's no longer bootable)?

If it is, it may be possible to just copy the available data to another drive.

 

[chestbox]

thanks for the reply @Fishrrman
yes. when i open finder, the drive shows under devices. it has 3 folders in it: Applications (27gb), DamagedFiles (zero bytes) & Library (45gb)
under 'about this mac' - 'storage' it shows me 655gb available
and easeUS did a scan on the drive already and it was able to show me basically a file for file folder structure of how it was before the drive got damaged (based on a first look at least everything important appeared to still be in place)
but the files don't show up in finder itself

 

[Fishrrman]

Have you tried running disk utility and using its "first aid" feature on the drive?

Did you keep a backup?
If so, how long ago was the last one?

 

[chestbox]

i tried doing so when my HD died/broke. the computer would only boot in recovery mode and i tried a few times from there. got errors some of the times and it just stuck the other times, making me just shut it down after a few hours. the available storage remained the same all this time.
ever since i installed the OS on the external SSD, i have not tried it again. mainly because i only kept reading to not try anything on the HD to maximize chance of recovery

 

[Fishrrman]

"when i open finder, the drive shows under devices. it has 3 folders in it: Applications (27gb), DamagedFiles (zero bytes) & Library (45gb)"

What happens if you open the "Library" folder and browse around?
Do you find anything "usable" or recognizable?

Ok, here's an important question:
Are you keeping a backup of the external SSD that you're using NOW?

 

[chestbox]

i seem to have access to that folder 'normally'. at least the relevant folders to me appear to be in order (audio & application support).

here's an important question:
Are you keeping a backup of the external SSD that you're using NOW?

lol i hear ya. not yet, but this external SSD only has OS, browser and data recovery software installed.

and i was also hoping that after i recover my data, should the drive still be usable, that i'd be able to format my internal drive and use that as a backup for my ssd. otherwise i'll only be able to do so next month anyway.

regardless will get on it asap and as soon as this my current issue is resolved