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hard drive recovery.

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  • 10-04-2015 12:16am
    #1
    denleno
    Registered Users Posts: 9 ✭


    Please someone help me if you can.
    a few months ago i stupidly formatted my 1tb seagate external harddrive. The reason i did this was so it could be used as a back up location for my macbook pro.

    before formatting i created a new folder in my macbook desktop and transferred all my harddrive files there. Since then i have backed up my macbook to the hard drive several times


    I thought that all was ok until earlier this evening i tried to access some of my old files that i transferred to the mac. I discovered that my files were unable to be opened. "Aliases" had been created but they too are not accessible.

    I downloaded a few software programs like recuva to see if i could recover my old files but i had no luck. Can anyone tell me if it is possible? Please. Years of photographs and hard work gone otherwise


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    #2
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    You might be better asking this the Apple forum.


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    #3
    ED E
    Registered Users Posts: 36,167 ✭✭✭✭ED E 


    In Mac OS System 7 and later, an alias is a small file that represents another object in a local, remote, or removable file system and provides a dynamic link to it; the target object may be moved or renamed, and the alias will still link to it (unless the original file is recreated; such an alias is ambiguous and how ...

    Its a shortcut, or symlink. Doesnt store the real data.

    Real data was wiped at the MFT level then most likely over written several times. Its gone. If it had only just happened youd have a chance, but not now.

    If it was a large amount of data the time it took to copy should have set off alarm bells. For future reference, time to get Crashplan/Carbonite/Backblaze.


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    #4
    denleno
    Registered Users Posts: 9 ✭denleno


    Oh god. Not good news then. Thanks anyway for the replies.


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    #5
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    My understanding is even if the MTF is overwritten the data can still be there. Until the data is overwritten with other data it's still there. Formatting doesn't erase data. That said if something like recuva doesn't find anything thats not a good sign. I don't know if a specialist would have better success.


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    #6
    Alanstrainor
    Registered Users Posts: 23,157 ✭✭✭✭Alanstrainor


    beauf wrote: »
    My understanding is even if the MTF is overwritten the data can still be there. Until the data is overwritten with other data it's still there. Formatting doesn't erase data. That said if something like recuva doesn't find anything thats not a good sign. I don't know if a specialist would have better success.

    Since the drive has been used to backup the macbook numerous times, I would think that chances of data recovery are extremely slim.

    Backblaze is your only man really! It at least means you dont have to worry about the physical hardware.


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    #7
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,648 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    That's assuming it was backing up all the files. I would expect then to get the latest copy of the data, even if its the wrong data.

    I wonder was it not doing anything or just a partial update. If the later then parts of the disk may not have been overwritten for a very long time. If there is nothing being recovered at all. Then the disk might be faulty, or the recovery isn't working. In which case the data might still be there, and different approach might work.

    In college as an exercise, we formatted a disk, and overwrote parts of it. We could still recover some of the original data. We were looking at recovering text information. We did it via Linux. Unless a disk is entirely overwritten old data could be on it for years. Which is why to erase a disk properly you have to completely fill it (overwrite it) with other data.

    AFAIK recuva isn't intended for Mac systems. The mac file system is a little different. I've no experience of recovering data from it. But I would try a mac specific program.

    I'm not recommending these just throwing them out as food for thought.

    http://www.techrepublic.com/article/3-data-recovery-applications-for-os-x/
    http://www.apowersoft.com/recuva-alternative-for-mac.html
    http://www.recuvaformac.com/

    Of course the disk could simply be faulty.

    Many people forget to make backups. Even more forget to test their backups, to see if the data ok when restored. I discovered that to my cost a few years back. One of my disks had a corrupt backup which I then synced to my other drives, making them all useless. I had to go back to an earlier DVD backup. Which wasn't corrupted.


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