Recovering data from my external hard drive

[kenise]

Hi,

My external hard drive has stopped working. I think it was because I didn't eject it properly.

I can't see it in Finder, but I can see it in Disk Utility. There's a lot of data I want to keep on it. Is there hope?

I tried to do First Aid, Verify and Repair in Disk Utility, but nothing worked.

Please help.

Thanks.

 

[macmanmatty]

Hi,

My external hard drive has stopped working. I think it was because I didn't eject it properly.

I can't see it in Finder, but I can see it in Disk Utility. There's a lot of data I want to keep on it. Is there hope?

I tried to do First Aid, Verify and Repair in Disk Utility, but nothing worked.

Please help.

Thanks.

how was your drive formatted? mac os extended? Fat 32? HFS+?

 

[kenise]

I think it was ex-fat

 

[BrianBaughn]

Take a look at these and see if they're applicable:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...was-easily-fixed-how-did-this-happen.1771764/

https://craigsmith.id.au/2014/07/06/repairing-a-corrupted-mac-osx-exfat-partition/

 

[kenise]

I'm a novice at these things. Can I apply this solution to an external hard drive. I don't know how.

 

[Open Casket]

mine is Mac formatted and I never eject it properly. never had a problem.
how old is your ex hd?

 

[Fishrrman]

There are data recovery apps for the Mac, but I'm not sure that they work with drives that aren't HFS+.

This is why I always ALWAYS ALWAYS recommend that Mac users use ONLY HFS+ drives for storing Mac stuff that is important to them.

OP:
I suggest you try the solution in reply 4 above.
If you don't know how, you're going to have to "get help".
Probably a level of "hands on help" that you can't get here.

A word of advice for the future:
Having stuff stored on a SINGLE DRIVE "is not enough".
If the stuff is important to you, it needs to be on at least TWO drives.
Otherwise, situations can arise such as the one you have right now.

 

[kenise]

Thanks for your input, guys. I'll take it to a local store and get it checked out.

 

[macmanmatty]

I think it was ex-fat

did you try to mount in windows or linux since it is exfat?

 

[kenise]

did you try to mount in windows or linux since it is exfat?

I wouldn't know how. I just have a Mac.
[doublepost=1500364630][/doublepost]I've been told that it can be fixed and that it has bad sectors. They want quite a lot of money. though.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"I've been told that it can be fixed and that it has bad sectors. They want quite a lot of money. though."

As you've discovered, professional data recovery is EXPENSIVE.

It's time to take a deep breath and ask yourself, is it really, REALLY worth spending all that money to get these files back?

Sometimes, "lost files" can be re-constructed through other sources. This is the case with downloaded music, pictures, movies.

Then again, there are things that have no other possible sources, such as user-taken pics, etc.

Again, you have to take stock of what is lost, what is replaceable, what is not.

You've learned a hard lesson here.
What happened is YOUR fault.
But don't take too much umbrage at that statement -- I've suffered such loss myself, through my own negligence.

I once lost a large partition of mp3's (with no backup). I got it back using data recovery software, but then it took me years (off and on) to actually rebuild the data as I wanted it. I just finished a few days' back.
But I learned my lesson.
I now keep extensive backups.

It's time for you to learn this same lesson...

 

[kenise]

OP wrote:
"I've been told that it can be fixed and that it has bad sectors. They want quite a lot of money. though."

As you've discovered, professional data recovery is EXPENSIVE.

It's time to take a deep breath and ask yourself, is it really, REALLY worth spending all that money to get these files back?

Sometimes, "lost files" can be re-constructed through other sources. This is the case with downloaded music, pictures, movies.

Then again, there are things that have no other possible sources, such as user-taken pics, etc.

Again, you have to take stock of what is lost, what is replaceable, what is not.

You've learned a hard lesson here.
What happened is YOUR fault.
But don't take too much umbrage at that statement -- I've suffered such loss myself, through my own negligence.

I once lost a large partition of mp3's (with no backup). I got it back using data recovery software, but then it took me years (off and on) to actually rebuild the data as I wanted it. I just finished a few days' back.
But I learned my lesson.
I now keep extensive backups.

It's time for you to learn this same lesson...

Yes, I know. Thank you.

 

[justperry]

Yes, I know. Thank you.

Are you sure it was ExFat and not HFS+, if it's the later then there's an app called Diskwarrior, it is
by far the best recovery App for a mac, but, ....it isn't cheap.