I just formatted by mistake a 4TB harddrive with tons of stuff I need & want. Is there any chance to restore this?

[Siannath]

Screenshot from Disk Utility:

I know this is my fault. I am stupid. I confirmed this. But, anyway, I beg for help.

This HDD had a single (user-accesible, at least) HFS Plus partition with lots of data. I formatted it by mistake.

Is there any chance to restore this?

A long time ago something like that happened to me, in the Windows 95 era. What I did then was to "manually" write the Master Boot Record. Because when you perform a "quick format", the data is not really erased. So a lot of time ago I saved face.

But now, with HFS, I have literally no idea if something like this can be solved.

Please, help me. There's lot of personal stuff there.

PD: I was saving for purchasing a NAS in order to have backups and reliable storage. I failed myself with this.

 

[vorkosigan1]

Yes. Detach the hard drive immediately.

Then get one of the recover software packages-I'm not sure what's current-here's a list from Macworld. Some of them have free versions:

We round up the best Mac data recovery software for when you need to retrieve lost, corrupted or deleted files on your Mac.

Disk failures can be a disaster. Here's the best Mac data recovery software to turn to when you need to retrieve lost, corrupted or deleted files on your Mac.

www.macworld.com

Ideally, you'll want another 4TB drive to save the rescued files onto.

As far as I know, there's no way to just write a new Master Boot Record. What's happened is that you lost the directory that tells you which file is where. So the software just goes out and looks for loose files. It can usually tell if it's a Word File, or a jpg, etc., but you'll lose the file name.

That's a rough intro, based on my experience about 5 years ago. Good luck!

 

[Tagbert]

I see you have a Time Machine drive attached. Are these files not backed up to TM?

 

[jav6454]

As poster #2 said, detach and find a data recovery software. That's the only choice at this point. Hopefully you had this data backed-up.

 

[Juicy Box]

I have used Disk Drill in the past for HDDs in a HW RAID0 that stopped mounting. Could be more user-friendly, but it worked great for me.

Disk Drill - Best Free Mac Data Recovery Software in 2024!

Disk Drill: The best data recovery software for Mac OS X. Recover deleted or lost data from any storage device, iOS and Android. Free scanning.

www.cleverfiles.com

It is free to try, but only to see what you are able to recover. You have to pay for the full version to recover the files.

 

[MarkC426]

Pardon my ignorance, but if the drive has been formatted, with 4TB free space, let's assume there was 3TB of data.
Where do the deleted files magically appear from when recovering, if the drive now shows as empty....?

I have never been able to get my head around this...😖

 

[Jim Lahey]

Pardon my ignorance, but if the drive has been formatted, with 4TB free space, let's assume there was 3TB of data.
Where do the deleted files magically appear from when recovering, if the drive now shows as empty....?

I have never been able to get my head around this...😖

Unless you use secure erase options then the data is not physically wiped. Only the reference to it is deleted, meaning the disc space is free to be occupied by new data as and when. Hence the suggestion to immediately detach the device until such time as a data recovery program can be used. To actually erase the data takes time as it must be overwritten with new IO.

 

[vorkosigan1]

Pardon my ignorance, but if the drive has been formatted, with 4TB free space, let's assume there was 3TB of data.
Where do the deleted files magically appear from when recovering, if the drive now shows as empty....?

I have never been able to get my head around this...😖

Think of it this way. The files are like chapters in a book. When you format the disk, you're erasing the table of contents. When the OS can't find the table of contents, it tells you that the drive is empty. But it's not-the chapters are still there; formatting didn't erase them; it just erased the table of contents! The OS just doesn't know how to find the chapters without the table of contents. The recovery software can find the chapters without the table of contents. But without a table of contents, it also finds all the chapters that deleted, etc. Also, it doesn't know the titles (names) of the chapters, so it can't give you that. But it can give you the content.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

As said by others -- DISCONNECT the drive immediately. It needs to be preserved "as it is now".

You will need data recovery software.
Some folks use Disk Drill.
I've used Data Rescue in the past.

YOU WILL NEED ANOTHER DRIVE large enough to hold the recovered files.
No way around this. There has to be "a scratch drive" for the recovered files to be saved on.

There is a possibility that existing folder hierarchies and file names will be lost.
Be prepared to spend A LOT of time reconstructing those files.
By that, it could take months or even years.

In the future, I would recommend that you DISCONNECT external drives that you aren't currently using.
Just keep connected what is necessary.
A good way to avoid "mistakes".

 

[winxmac]

I had a similar experience several years ago when I was using a 4GB drive that I partitioned into system and data [Windows computer]

I accidentally formatted the data partition when I was wanting to format the system partition... I used a CLI to perform the format/wipe and selected 1 thinking that it pertains to system partition, little did I know that instead of 1 & 2, it used 0 & 1 for numbering the partitions which caused me to format the drive with data stored on it... I have little experience with data recovery back then and I don't remember if I was able to perform a data recovery... It was an IDE drive and I believe I still have kept it but since computers now are using SATA connection, I don't have any way of connecting the drive to the computer unless I have SATA to IDE cable or an enclosure that has IDE... It's been about 20 years now and I don't know if the drive will still function since it has never been used when that happened...

That was about 4GB of data and it may take about half a day to find and recover the files but with you having a 4TB drive it may take weeks, months, or even up to a year to finish recovering all the files stored on it... I have learned my lesson of checking first before hitting the enter key and I have several data recovery programs that I can use in case something similar happens in the future...

 

[appltech]

Stellar Data Recovery or Disk Drill

Less you use the drive= more chances to restore the data
Unless there was "... Encrypted" filesystem

Before restoring disable Spotlight, background, other apps, Internet. And look for appropriate free amount of storage for restored files ( you can't restore files on affected disk obviously)

 

[jdoyle]

Dont do anything else and try one of the utilities mentioned. I have had success getting data back, usually file trcuture will be lost so you will get folders per document type. So one will have all Word documents, one PDFs etc. You may even loose file names. So it may be a long road to getting your files back but its doable. When you formatted all you did was tell the files system that space is ready to be written over. The less you do the more chance you have that they havent been re written over.

 

[Siannath]

Thank you all for your advice. I have readed it all. I will use Disk Drill, because I am currently a Setapp subscriber, which includes this app.

I had the disk disconnected this time. Thank to you, I know that I will be able to recover lots of files, but with no names and no folder structure, which is not ideal, but is better than nothing. I have a new 4TB drive available for restoring the files, so I will use that.

Thank you again and cheers!

 

[Big Bad D]

And, hoping you recover some or all of your data, then immediately establish some proper backup process!

 

[sgtaylor5]

have the data you want on more than one drive, and never have both of those two drives attached at the same time.