Recover Ext Hard Drive

[benwa02]

Alrite so I went over to a friends house with my Mac formatted external drive and he seemed to think that he could get it to show so we could check out some footage.

Well he tried and tried and went to the format button clicked it real quick and then stopped it within a second. Now I come back home and the freaking thing wont show up on my desktop

It now shows the format: MS-DOS File System(FAT16)

No dice on repairing it through disk utility.

So what can I do??? Hit the format Mac and stop it real quick lol.??

Really need help as I have my professors stuff on this drive. He will not be a happy camper if its deleted.

 

[LimeiBook86]

I have used Data Rescue II to recover a lot of hard drives. Your data is probably still on the hard drive, weather you can recover your data or not is unkown. At least you can try the program, you can download a try-out version here Data Rescue II Try-out

Good luck

 

[grapes911]

I have used Data Rescue II to recover a lot of hard drives. Your data is probably still on the hard drive, weather you can recover your data or not is unkown. At least you can try the program, you can download a try-out version here Data Rescue II Try-out

Good luck

I'm doubt that will work (try it any way though), becuase it sounds like the partition map is messed up. If the computer starts searching for possible files in FAT32, it probably won't find any because they are HFS+.

 

[benwa02]

I would like to think that the drive will not be lost since it was a 1 second format. Ive got to be able to get it back, atleast i think so.

 

[WinterMute]

I would like to think that the drive will not be lost since it was a 1 second format. Ive got to be able to get it back, atleast i think so.

Have you tried DiskWarrior? It's been very good at resurrecting drives with directory problems in the past, might just work for you.

Doh... Just read the post properly, if it's showing up as a FAT32 disc then DW won't be much use I think, although it might still be worth a shot.

 

[benwa02]

Have you tried DiskWarrior? It's been very good at resurrecting drives with directory problems in the past, might just work for you.

Doh... Just read the post properly, if it's showing up as a FAT32 disc then DW won't be much use I think, although it might still be worth a shot.

Its showing up as FAT16.

 

[yellow]

Typically those quick-formats just erase the partion map and all the data should still be there. The bad news is, you're going to have to fork over some dough for recovery software. After that, you should go rabbit punch youyr friend for being a Windowstard and blindly clicking buttons that pop up without reading them..

 

[benwa02]

This is the output from disk utility


Verify and Repair disk “disk2s1”
** /dev/disk2s1
Invalid BS_jmpBoot in boot block: 000000
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit


1 non HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error

 

[yellow]

There's no "repairing" this.. The map was wiped and then probably stopped before it was completed being rewritten for FAT*.

You have 3 choices:

1) Do nothing, kiss the data bye bye, and egg your friend. -> $ones to $tens
2) Recovery software -> $tens to $hundreds
3) Professional data recovery service -> $hundreds to $thousands

 

[benwa02]

Typically those quick-formats just erase the partion map and all the data should still be there. The bad news is, you're going to have to fork over some dough for recovery software. After that, you should go rabbit punch youyr friend for being a Windowstard and blindly clicking buttons that pop up without reading them..

lol

Ya im thinking that it just messed up how the drives initiates. Which piece of software do I need?

 

[yellow]

The one that Limeibook linked above is one that works fairly well.. plus you have a demo that'll give you an idea of what is recoverable, if anything.

There is also: http://www.binarybiz.com/vlab/mac.php

 

[benwa02]

The one that Limeibook linked above is one that works fairly well.. plus you have a demo that'll give you an idea of what is recoverable, if anything.

Ya ive been meaning to check that out.


Could this really be that messed up? I see people talking about whiping their hard drive and trying to get it all back. A split second format cant whipe out 200gigs of files.

 

[yellow]

Sorry, but Reading is Fundamental.

Once again, more laymanish.. the oh-so-brief-brief format wiped out a "list" with drive info, including where all the files (and pieces of files) are located on the disk. There's no "fixing" the "list". All you can do is buy software to "find" the files on the drive and "put them back together" for you.

 

[NYmacAttack]

Ya ive been meaning to check that out.


Could this really be that messed up? I see people talking about whiping their hard drive and trying to get it all back. A split second format cant whipe out 200gigs of files.

There is a diference between deleting your files and messing with the formatiing of the drive. The formating of the drive messes with the bioot sector which would not allow any simple software to find the files. Unlike when you delete a file and the file is still "there"

 

[benwa02]

And the results are in.

I tried many variations in virtual lab and nothing at all showed up. Got a little worried at this point.

Then tried Data Rescue II which showed everything on the drive with the quick scan in seconds. YEAH!!

Now I just need to purchase Data Rescue II to get my data back.

Thanks all. I let ya know once its done.