Intended Boot USB creation wiped storage HD - Recovery possible?

[KommanderKeen]

Hi,

Earlier this week I used my Mac Pro to create a Boot USB so I could reinstall the OS on a separate Macbook.

My Mac Pro has two harddrives in it. One for the OS and one for storage.

I'm not quite sure how/where the error occurred but the result is that it seems that the storage harddrive is the one that became the boot disk.

The storage drive has gone from the Finder favourites/devices list. It's visible in Disk Utility but named as a boot disk.

I do have a Time Machine backup on a separate external harddrive but it's a couple of weeks old. If there's a method to recover files from my storage harddrive I may as well try it first because it would save some time.

Is it likely to be recoverable? I'm hoping I'm not going to hear that recovery from a drive that's been made into a OS Boot disk is impossible for some reason by comparison to deleted files/failing HDs.

I'm assuming the only approach is to find a 3rd party piece of software to do the recovery? Nothing free or pre-installed on the Mac will work?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Fishrrman]

Can you open the problem drive in the finder?
If so, can you see your "old" files there (the files that were there before the mishap)?

I'm going to -guess- that they may be "gone", because I believe the normal procedure for creating a bootable USB flash drive involves:
1. Completely erasing the target
2. Installing the OS installer onto the target
(in that order).

So... my (again) guess is that the old data is now gone, and that you should be thankful that you have a TM backup that's only a couple of weeks old.

Better get busy restoring from it.

Suggestion:
Did you try using the terminal to make the USB flashdrive installer?
If so... next time... try "Diskmaker X" instead.