Recovering disk image

I have a problem, two years back I deleted a disk image with valuable information on it. I have not been able to find a good enough data recovery tool online that is free to use that will allow me to restore this .dmg file. I have a good feeling that it is still there because all documents and pictures from the same time period were recoverable. I can see the .dmg I need in the app " disk drill" but to open it and restore it I have to upgrade to the pro version. As a college student, I am broke so if anyone has any alternatives that would be great. Thank you very much.

Data Recovery – Best
Data Recovery – Data Rescue
Data Recovery – File Salvage
Data Recovery – Stellar Phoenix
Data Recovery - uFlysoft
Data Recovery - Recovering Deleted Files
Data Recovery - Recovering Deleted Files (2)

Similar Messages

Is it possible to recover iCal calendars from disk image of hard drive?

Hi, I made and saved a disk image of intel imac hard-drive with a g4 imac running leo. I now want to recover the info contained on iCal in my account on that disk image. Is it possible without restoring that disk image on to an intel imac?
I wanted a clean install on the new imac for reasons that are valid, and some that I'm not quite sure were valid reasons such as security, since I don't know what is on the net that can or cannot compromise security either through website visits or email.

Yes it is, and with the links provided below in the "More Like This" you'll be able to get the right info.

Lost All SD Card Data Via Create "Disk Image" - Any Hope To Recover?

Hi All,
Hope this is the right place to post - I run Snow Leopard on a June 210 2.66 i7 UMBP. Please forgive my very limited knowledge but I was following instructions on how to create a "Disk Image" of a SDHC Card to preserver exact data so as to enable easy import of Full HD 60FPS AVCHD/.MTS stuff shot on a Sony DSC-HX9V Camera. (Sony PS Video Mode)
I am basically "Monkey See. Monkey Do" & was having a nightmare trying to figure out why I could not transfer the stuff on the SD Card to iMovie 11/ iMovie HD. I read lots of threads here & elsewhere & the advice seemed to be to make a "Disk Image" of the SD Card via Disk Utility & then import into iMovie from there. I found the following online instructions:
http://blog.scoopz.com/2008/10/13/ba...to-disk-image/
I followed the exact instructions to the letter but kept getting error messages a few times & the process would not complete. On the last occasion (4th), the process completed very quickly & a "Disk Image was created on my desktop. I noticed that it said that there was pretty much 16GB free out of the 16GB capacity of the card & when I opened it, all I found were folder icons & garbled descriptions with some strange files - The SAME was true of the stuff on the SD Card which I was desperately trying to back up & save. The Card was full of Data when I inserted it.
All the photos & videos in all folders are now missing/gone & I do not know why. I am desperately hoping there might be some way I can get all the stuff back - is there any hope? What, as someone of very limited understanding of these things, do to recover the stuff on the SD Card if at all possible? I have enclosed some pics so you can see what I see. What happened here - where did all my stuff go?
Many Kind Thanks!

You were on the right track, but now the disk free space doesn't give me much hope you'll recover anything. The .MTS files are in fact the video files:
http://www.etinysoft.com/
Total Video Converter can convert these files to MPEG-4 that iMovie, iTunes, iPhone, and iPod can use. First double check that there aren't any .MTS files left with http://apps.tempel.org/FindAnyFile/ And if it can't find any, use one of these data recovery tools:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-1689
Once you have it, then you can use Total Video Converter to get it to a format you can use. I have a Sony DSC-HX-100V and it makes the same sort video files.

How cam i recover a lost Disk Image?

I tried creating an encrypted 30GB disk image but got impatient and clicked cancel while it was still creating. Although it finished creating and even asked me to create a password, I can't seem to find it anywhere. My 30GB of space is gone. How can i recover it?

Thanks for your comment.
I tried your suggestion. It was not successful. However, I did "Shut Down" then unplug the power from my new WD external hard drive used for "Time Machine." When I completed a Start-up the offending and Time Machine Icons were gone. Upon re-power and re-Start both Icons were back. The offending Icon was not effected by dragging to the Trash.
FYI.
I did subsequently find the file type as "Volume." However, shouldn't that operate [drag to the trash] in the same way as a DMG file?
I also unlocked the file. It re-locked and re-appeared automatically.

How to recover partition (with encrypted sparse bundle disk image) that won't mount?

I have a Late 2013 27" iMac running OS X 10.9.4. I have an external drive that I use for Time Machine backups which also has an encrypted sparse bundle disk image. Yesterday, the drive stopped showing up in Finder, so I went to Disk Utility and tried to mount it. No go. So I tried repairing it, and it said it couldn't. I'm not worried about the Time Machine backup since my iMac is find so I can just make a backup to a new external drive. However, the encrypted sparse bundle disk image has some files in it that I don't have elsewhere. Is there a way to recover these files without sending it in to a drive recovery service (since those would cost a LOT of money)?

No such options. As I mentioned in the post title and in my first post, the partition won't mount.

Can I recover an AES-128 encrypted disk image from the 'trash'?

I am a college student and I created an AES-128 encrypted disk image file (.dmg, .sparseimage) to store all my assignments and things. Unfortunately, while cleaning out my computer, I accidentally put the file in the trash without noticing and then proceeded to empty the trash. I then turned to the application 'MacKeeper' and used it's 'undelete' function but I could not find the file. It is very very important that I recover this file. I desperately need help.

You might have better luck with something stronger.....
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/10259/data-rescue
....I have not used it....(lucky)

Recover lost disk image backup file

I think I may have screwed myself, but basically I am trying to get back the sparseimage that was lost when I tried backing up my internal hdd to an external using SuperDuper. My issue is that the external HDD was formatted as NTFS so I was using the NTFS-3G driver for write access. So something must have happened when I tried to remount and and the file was lost. This was after running a checkdisk on a windows machine to get the ntfs partition to show up again. So basically I am trying to figure out what kind of software I could use, if any, to get this 80gb disk image back. Also I should note that I used compression when backing up the disk image so I am thinking that this might make my problem even more complicated. Any help or advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.

Cool, Ya that program did a pretty good job. It seemed to have found my lost directory structure. However like I mentioned I think I'm running into an issue with the compression that was ran on the image after backing it up. A feature that I am now regretting using. Because when I try to recover a file, like a jpg, preview says it can't preview the file. And opening plain text files gives me what appears to be binary or hex etc. So I am thinking I am running into issues where the files are still compressed and I need to figure out how to decompress them first before I can fully recover them. I was considering trying to just recover the whole directory structure and renaming the the top folder to a .img or .dmg file but I am not sure if that will work. Any ideas?
Thanks again.

Recovery Software for Disk Image Backup on External Drive

Hello. I am currently running OSX Yosemite on a mid-2010 Macbook Pro. However, before I upgraded from OSX Maverick I installed a SSD as a boot drive and moved my original Toshiba HDD to the optical bay for media storage. Before the installation, I purchased a LaCie 1TB external hard drive, formatted it, then dragged the entire Toshiba HDD image from the desktop to the external HD. That image is visible on the external HD but is inaccessible by Disk Utility, whether I use it from the HD, the SSD, or the Installation DVD. All scans and attempts to mount and open the image fail. I realize now I made a mistake by not cloning the Toshiba HDD onto the external HD before starting but the image size (on the external HD) is 187GB, which corresponds with a somewhat compressed ~220GB (the original size of the Toshiba HDD). Therefore, it seems as though the files are present and intact, albeit currently inaccessible.
Is there any way to recover the files from the disk image, i.e. via Data Recovery Software such as Data Rescue 4, Stellar Phoenix or R-Studio? Alternately, could I use the same software to recover the now deleted files from the wiped and reformatted Toshiba HDD? I'm having trouble accepting that the 187GB of data on the external drive are really gone, as it represents over a decade of media collection and contains many irreplaceable files. I'm hoping there is something that can be done before spending a lot of money on clean room data recovery services. Please help!!!
Thank you in advance as any and all advice is very much appreciated.

General File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive. Two free alternatives are Disk Drill and TestDisk. Look for them and demos at MacUpdate or CNET Downloads.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.

How do I mount a disk image that won't open?

I have an external drive Samsung 500 GB that was failing. I think my MacBook Air (10.6.8) caused it to fail because it wouldn't allow me to eject the disk even though I forced quit all programs. I eventually had to just unplug the drive and this caused the external disk to fail as it had not been ejected properly. Not my fault. It's the MBA's fault for not letting me eject the disk. Now the Samsung disk won't mount properly and I get a message that the drive is failing and I should save the data.
Anyhow, I used the free version of Data Rescue 3 to try and save the data on the failing Samsung 500 GB drive and move it onto a brand new Toshiba 1 TB drive.
I was unable to use the normal scanning function of Data Rescue 3 as the hardware of the drive was too damaged, and so I used the clone function on Data Rescue 3 to clone the data onto a non-failing hard drive, with the intent of restoring the data later.
I am not sure if I was successful in making the disk image. It hung up at the 99.6% point for about 12 hours when I decided to give up on it, and I shut down Data Rescue so I could eject the hard disks.
However, it would not let me do it. I tried force ejecting but still I could not eject the disks.
I ended up just unplugging the drives. I think the Samsung drive died almost completely then because it made a whole lot of clicking noises after that (it was only making a few clicking noises before that).
Anyhow, I plugged the Toshiba 1 TB drive into the computer again and used Data Rescue to scan the drive with the disk image on it to see if I could detect files on that drive.
It opened up the structure and I was able to see that most or all of the files were there (abbout 450GB of data) just from seeing the information about the files in the structure tree - the labels of the files (file type labels such as jpg, mp4 etc) and the size of the files, although I could not open up the files to check all of them.
I tested out the restore function of Data Rescue by downloading one file (<10MB) file. I am using the free version and can download one file for free to test things out.
It worked and I was able to save that file onto a second external drive (Western Digital 500 GB) I had plugged in. I had bought this drive just to do the data rescue.
So I think the files are salvageable and the disk image is OK.
However, when I tried to open the disk image in Disk Utility, by opening it as the source and choosing the WD drive as the destination I could not open it. I got an error message. I can't remember what the message was.
I tried just opening the disk image in Finder by just clicking on the disk image but it won't mount.
Is that because my hard drive doesn't have enough space? My Desktop on the MBA only has 12 GB free and the WD drive has only 500 GB on it even though the disk image is about 501 GB.
I don't know why the disk image is that size when the failing Samsung drive only had 450 GB of data on it.
Anyway, what should I do to mount the disk image?
I want to mount the disk image so that I can copy or move the files from it to another external drive so that I can save those files.
Is it because the WD is only 500 GB or does it mean there's a problem with the disk image I made?
Should I try Carbon Clone Copy? I use that to make backups of my MBA internal HDD though I have never used it for opening or making disk images.
I have never dealt with disk images before except for dmg files of applications downloaded from the internet.
I am trying to avoid using Data Rescue 3 as I have to pay for it and if there is a free option, such as Disk Utility, CCC or other, I want to try it to restore the data in the disk image.
Sadly, I think the Samsung drive is ruined beyong repair as it's making a lot of clicking sounds and doesn't mount properly in Disk Image and I get a message that it's beyond repair or something like that in Disk Utility.
So I am relying on the disk image I made on the Toshiba drive to restore my files.
(I think it was the last movie file that caused the problem because it was when I was trying to copy it onto the Samsung external drive, all the problems began - hanging up when copying it, not being able to eject the Samsung disk, causing hardware issues on Samsung disk and getting warning messages on Disk Utility.)
BTW, I learned how to eject a drive when it won't eject the normal way, I have to use command window and type in commands, but that's another post ....
Any advice?
I am thinking of going out and buying a second 1 TB external drive so that I have a disk with enough space to open the 501GB disk image on it, just in case that was the sole problem.
However, I am not sure that is the case, and I think there may be a problem with the disk image or I am not going the right way about opening it.
Thanks for any advice.

I think I've found the solution to this problem.
http://superuser.com/questions/19426/im-unable-to-mount-a-dmg-getting-a-no-mount able-filesystems-error
I am following the instructions here:
I ran into a similar situation. I did what simonair suggested and I received a message in Terminal that Volume mounted successfully. However It did not help me access the mounted Volume neither was I able to confirm the mounted Volume. Nor was I able to mount the image using Disk Drill or even scan through. Nothing succeeded.
Here is what I did to solve my problem. I see that in this post some suggested that we should convert name.dmg to writable file. I used the command from Terminal to convert but was not successful. INSTEAD alternatively, I used Disk Utility, attached the Volume (yes I got the same message again, ''no mountable system files'' however, Disk Utility nevertheless attached the image, which I was able to do before anyways. This time, I selected it and then clicked New image, and then selected image format read/write, not the compressed option. I created a new image. This time this image was writable however, it still would not mount using Simonair's solution. However, this time I was able to scan it with Disk Drill with exact file locations and folder hierarchy as I had. Recovering all from thereon was a breeze. Just remember: when you create new image of an attached volume and chose not compressed but read/write, you need to have a disk with exact amount of space that totals the total space allocated within that name.dmg file (not the amount of space the data takes). Mine was huge, and luckily I had an external disk with enough space to do that and it took about 5 hours for about 400GB of disk allocation. Good luck.
And so far it seems to be working. Even though the volume is grayed out on the left side of Disk Utility, I am still able to select it as the source for making a new disk image. I chose Read and Write and no compression.
The only thing I might be doing differently is that instead of choosing the disk image as the source, I chose the volume as the source. The volume is grayed out, but the disk image is not.
It seems to be working all right. Keep my fingers crossed.
If this doesn't work, I will use Data Recovery 3 as a last resort.

Hard Drive and Disk Image not mounting

Hey everyone,
I'm running a G5 Dual 2Ghz. with OSX 10.5.8 I'm having problems with a back up hard drive. It is an external Western Digital My Book 1.5TB SATA drive. After using it for a few months, it suddenly did not mount anymore.
*1) It also would not appear in Disk Utility.*
a) Disk Warrior couldn't find the drive (I think because it's formatted with FAT32)
*2) I then took the drive out of the enclosure and put it in the spare bay in the G5.*
a) It didn't mount
b) It did show up in Disk Utility
c) In Disk Utility it wouldn't give me the option to Repair Disk Permissions or Repair Disk
d) In Disk Utility is says under Partition Scheme: Unformatted
e) In Disk Utility I don't have the option to mount/eject only gives me the "info" option
f) Tech Tool did find the drive and it passed all tests
g) Disk Warrior still did not find the drive
h) TestDisk finds the drive, but does not find any partitions
*3) I then created a disk image of the drive in Disk Utility onto an external hard drive. The image comes back at 320GB, which seems to be about right I think.*
a) The disk image would not mount with Disk Image Mounter. It would say there is an Unrecognized File System
b) In Disk Utility - I don't have the option to Repair Disk Permissions
c) In Disk Utility - When trying to Repair Disk - I get the error: Repairing Disk failed with error Unrecognized FileSystem
d) In Disk Utility - If I click Open - The Log file says:
+Attach Image+
Initializing...
Verifying...
Finishing...
+Image of "disk0.dmg" attached successfully+
+Mount of "disk0.dmg" succeeded+
-But it is no where to be found
e) Disk Warrior can not find the Disk Image
f) I took the new external drive with the Disk Image to 3 other mac computers but the image would not mount
*4. Other things I've tried when opening the Disk Image for the new external drive.*
a) in Terminal - hdiutil attach -nomount "volumes/untitled/disk0.dmg"
b) in Terminal - sudo hdiutil attach -nomount "volumes/untitled/disk0.dmg"
c) Deleting files System/Library/Extensions.kextcache
System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kernalcaches
ALL UNSUCCESSFUL
I'm running very low on ideas. I know I could just erase the drive and reformat it, but the files on it are very important and must be recovered.
Any help or suggestions would be very helpful. I will not have time until after the weekend to try more things. Thanks in advance if you do not hear back from me until after this weekend.

Yes, it will. But if DU says the disk is unformatted then it is also not accessible. If you have files you don't wish to lose then you will need to try recovery software:
Basics of File Recovery
General File Recovery
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.

Disk Image backup

I was curious if I could make an exact image of my HD with all the software i have installed and use that image in the event i need to rebuild my machine. So, for example, OSX, photoshop, final cut and all directories on the HD so I could easily haver this backup. Can it be done if i use the disc utility?

To answer your question, it can be done with Disk Utility. You have to start up from your Mac OS X Installation Disk, and run Disk Utility from the Installer menu (because you can't make an image of the disk you are starting up from using this method). Note: If you have an external (or other) drive that has Mac OS X installed, you can start up from it and run Disk Utility.
Select the volume you want to image in the sidebar, then...
File menu > New > Disk Image from {name of disk}
Save the Disk Image file to another drive, such as an external drive.
To recover, run Disk Utility the same way. Go to the Restore tab. Click the Image... button to get the disk image into the Source field. Drag and drop the target volume from the sidebar to the field called Destination. Click the Restore button. I've done it a few times and it works fine.

Disk image backup freez

I like to make a disk image of the partition with the operating system on it from time to time as a backup to an external hard drive. Works fine with my Powerbook G4 but the last couple of times I've tried to use disk utility to make such a disk image for my iMac it freezes. I have to shut the computer down with the button. It might actually finish but I don't know how to tell!? I'd rather it just work like it is supposed to. I just to the operating system partition. I do read only and no encryption. I do this all the time but now it doesn't work. I always throw the trash out, do a repair permissions and a disk repair before I do this. The first time this froze I did have an actual repair of the disk. It said it fixed it. That does worry me. Any ideas? Steve (p.s. I am doing this from the boot disk that came with the computer.)

To answer your question, it can be done with Disk Utility. You have to start up from your Mac OS X Installation Disk, and run Disk Utility from the Installer menu (because you can't make an image of the disk you are starting up from using this method). Note: If you have an external (or other) drive that has Mac OS X installed, you can start up from it and run Disk Utility.
Select the volume you want to image in the sidebar, then...
File menu > New > Disk Image from {name of disk}
Save the Disk Image file to another drive, such as an external drive.
To recover, run Disk Utility the same way. Go to the Restore tab. Click the Image... button to get the disk image into the Source field. Drag and drop the target volume from the sidebar to the field called Destination. Click the Restore button. I've done it a few times and it works fine.

Even after resets get "The backup disk image "/Volumes/FreeAgent GoFlex Drive/MacBeth (2) 1.sparsebundle" could not be created (error 22)."

HELP! "The backup disk image “/Volumes/FreeAgent GoFlex Drive/MacBeth (2) 1.sparsebundle” could not be created (error 22)."
TC estimates over 750GB for full backup.
Late 2010 MBA is connected wirelessly to
802.11n (1st gen) TC that is connected via ethernet hub built into house to motorola router using charter.com for internet.
I have had same problem for over 150 days and multiple reboots, restarts in proper order, firmware updates, unplugs with 5min plus gaps, bypassing the tc and using external 500gb WD mybook via usb to time capsule, replacement of the WD mybook to new 2TB Free Agent GoFlex drive, etc, etc, etc! Note: I originally named my MBA hard drive MacBeth, but at some point months ago, it said backup already existed and system automatically created MacBeth (2), worked for a while, then stopped again, despite trying nearly daily.
I gave up and started using Carbon Copy Clone daily for just the 128gb on internal SSD of my late 2011 11" MacBook Air, but need to get past these time capsule errors to back up the external disk! Due to lack of space in MBA, I had long ago transferred both itunes and iphoto and all imovie/fcpx files to a 1tb external disk (WD Passport) that I keep in my bag with MBA. It is partitioned with 150gb for cloning the MBA, and over 750gb for media/itunes/iphoto/etc.
Also, I have endured months of "your hard drive is full" messages and system lockups, applying the solution given to me by genious bar (deleting all aol.com outboxes/recovered messages/spam/trash under library/mail/V2/Mailboxes folders, empty trash, restart....watch recovered hard drive space mysteriously shrink next couple days to zero.....repeat)
Due to lack of space, I had not been able to do javascript and other system updates. Yesterday, I noticed even safari bookmark bar had mysteriously emptied (not disappeared, I can hide and show the space where the bar used to be - it is just blank area with no data except for eyelass-book-topsites icons), so I transferred a few large quicktime movie files recorded with isight camera to the external disk, and freed up 20 gbs for the first time!
This got my hopes up yesterday because after I completed all system/software updates, suddenly the bookmark bar showed up and I was able to start the time capsule backup! It took overnight preparing for backup, but finally started and progressed to 12gb of the 100gb+ needed (i guess the update where it left off months ago for the estimated 750gb for the full backup?), then I put system to sleep and took it with me (thus leaving the wireless time capsule network as I do daily fully expecting it to continue when I returned home in the evening.) But alas, upon return, back to the "Time Machine could not complete backup, The backup disk image ".....sparsebundle" could not be created (error 22)" Ugh! More reboots, unplugs, 5min gaps....still Ugh!
So the problem continues...please help! Here are my settings:
About this mac:
Mac OS X V. 10.7.5
processor 1.6 ghz intel core 2 duo, memory 4 4g 1067 MHz DDR3
software up to date!
Airport Utility:
V 6.2 (620.33)
both internet globe and TC show green dots in graphic, however internet occasionally shows yellow then goes to green, but still gets error 22. Suddenly TC showed explanation mark and says lost connection and asked if I wanted to 'forget', gave same errors, then mysteriously went back to green, but still got error 22!.
Internet:
connection: connected, displays router address, 2 dns server, and domain name: charter.com
Time Capsule:
shows network, ip address, serial number, version 7.6.3, status: (green dot) Setup over WAN,
wireless clients: phones, macbooks (including this MBA), printers, wii
If you need other settings to help me, just ask! I have read a few of the other solutions in forums, but trying not to erase disks, especially since it worked for a minute yesterday!

To step sideways.. why not just use CCC to backup the 750GB of the hard disk to the TC.
You need to understand this is going to be a super slow process and each time you stop it.. it is going to give issues. CCC will at least do a more reliable job of it than TM.
I would also say.. this is going to be tough without ethernet. You need to understand the backup speed over wireless can be 10GB per hour.. that makes 75hrs to backup the disk. The air needs to run non-stop doing that.. without you touching it.
I would get another external drive.. plug that into the MBA and if you really want to use TM.. make a backup one to the other.. but CCC will again do a better job and work faster. It will be much faster than over wireless.
I am trying to think of ways around the issue of just speed.. but plainly you have lots of other issues.. being the simple unreliablity of the TM to identify the TC.
If you want to make this work.. give yourself a weekend.
Load 5.6 utility into the MBA..
http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1482
Take the TC back to 7.5.2 firmware. It is a really old version and latest firmware does it no good at all.
Wipe its hard disk using erase and start over.. give it new names for everything.
So call it TC
Set the wireless to 5ghz and name it TC5ghz
Use WPA2 Personal security. Use a 10 character passkey non dictionary.
At 5ghz you should get 2x the speed as at 2.4ghz but the air will need to be right next to the TC..
(alternatively buy the USB to ethernet cord apple have available.. it is $30 in the apple store and do it over pseudoethernet. http://store.apple.com/au/product/MC704ZM/A/apple-usb-ethernet-adapter That is the wrong store but you get the idea. )
WIth a fully clean system.. now do a full reset of TM.
See A4 http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
Direct the TM to back to the TC.. and make sure the external hard disk is not excluded.
Of course the TC has to be 1TB version to fit that much data.. goes without saying right.
Even over pseudo - ethernet this will take many hours.. and you basically have to leave it to work.. do not touch it.. make sure the MBA cannot sleep though.. turn off sleep.. beforehand.

Time Machine and mounted sparse bundle disk image - file by file backup?

I think I had this system working in Leopard, but upon upgrade to Snow Leopard it seems to have broken. Does anyone have any idea how I can get Time Machine to back up the contents of a mounted sparse bundle disk image in real time - file by file within the disk image? For example, I have a 2GB sparse bundle disk image that i keep all of my bank statements/files/records in. It auto-mounts on boot and stays mounted. I use the disk image to keep it password-protected, so if I unmount it it is fairly safe. In Leopard, I would exclude the .sparseimage file from backup, but it would still backup the mounted image itself on a file-by-file basis, so I could enter Time Machine and explore the image folder by folder, file by file (say I deleted an old bank statement by mistake, I could go into time machine and recover as if it were a normal file/folder).
In Snow Leopard, after a clean install, and creating a new sparse bundle disk image and excluding the .sparsebundle file, I can't seem to get this to work even though the image is mounted. Is there any way to trick Time Machine into backing up the mounted image as it would any other folder? I know I can back up the .sparsebundle file incrementally but in order to recover a lost document I'd have to remount the old bundle and that seems rather roundabout.
Thanks,

I think you're trying to bypass the finder to mount the disk. Try this (I'll bold the key steps):
- *Turn off Time Machine* in the System Preferences.
- Option A: If you directly use a hard disk (not wireless) that has the sparsebundle you want to open, *connect the disk* but don't double click on the sparsebundle.
- Option B: If you are using wireless, this means use shift-command-k (or shift-apple-k), and if it says "Connect As..." in the upper right instead of disconnect, then use that button to *connect to that wireless drive*.
- Confirm the sparsebundle shows in that folder before proceeding...
- *Open Terminal* (Applications>Utilities>Terminal.app)
- Type: *hdiutil attach -noverify* (<-- notice a *space " "* must be included after typing this here but *DON'T hit return* yet.)
- *Drag the sparsebundle to the cursor in terminal*, and it should fill in something like /Volumes/HardDrive/COMPUTERNAME.sparsebundle for you. Now you can hit return, and the disk will mount.
- After you are done browsing sparsebundle's mounted image, *eject the mounted disk* like you would any other disk (not the sparsebundle image itself, just the disk icon that appeared if you successfully mounted it).
- Turn *Time Machine back on* in the System Preferences.
Hope this helps.

Backup disk and Disk Images not mounting

*Intial Disk Utility problem:* Recently my trusty 6 year old PowerBook G4 died from hard-drive failure, with most of my data backed up on external drives. Before migrating data over to my new iMac, I performed "First Aid" in "Disk Utility" on the external backup drive. One of the drives (500GB iomega drive) that backed up my PowerBook and my PC had 5 partitions (4 were FAT32, and 1 was NTFS), somehow got erased in Disk Utility. Even though I was just verifying one of the partitions the whole drive was cleared and renamed: disk2s4 (28kb) and disk2s10 (372.5GB). This didn't take much time, so I knew all the data hadn't been cleared, and checked the Security Options for Erase, and its set to "Don't Erase Data."
*Disk Warrior attempt:* At this point, having a sorta wrecked backup drive that still apparently had data, I bought Disk Warrior and gave that a try. It read the drive the first time, but couldn't recover any of the directory information. Hoping to not overwrite anything, at that point, I didn't proceed with the "rebuild" option. Now when I try Disk Warrior, it just says:
Directory Cannot be rebuilt due to disk hardware failure (-50,447)
- This disk appears to be a MacOS standard sik
- This disk does not appear on the desktop
- This disk is 372.49 GB in size
- Disk ID: disk2s10
- File system: HFS (standard) +even though most of the drives had been fat32+
Now Disk Warrior doesn't even give the option to scan the drive.
*Disk Imaging attempt:* Disk Warrior is claiming a hardware problem (which isn't really the case), so I tried making a disk image in Disk Utility of both disk2s10 and disk2s4. I tried opening disk2s10.dmg in Finder and in Disk Utility, and get the message: "No mountable file systems." In the past when confronted with unmountable disk images, I've used VLC media player. So, I pull up VLC read disk2s10.dmg and music starts playing!!! At first I freak out, then I realize that its the first song listed in my iTunes library -- the data is there, can be retrieved, but I'm not sure how to get it!
*Next attempts:* the only other thing I can think of is to try daemon tools or something on my PC, or bring the drives into the the school IT guys.
Please let me know what you think would work that I haven't already tried. Though I have redundancy in the backups, I haven't been able to recover some data for my PhD thesis due in a month, and therefore haven't given up on reviving this disk yet.

I've downloaded the DataRescue and FileSalvage trials, and am currently scanning with DataRescue which will take another few hours. Thanks for those recommendations, its so useful to have a trial scan before buying.
*General Question:* I noticed through these various attempts that reformatting extra drives in the current version of Disk Utility has become a little more dangerous than before. For example, I was reformatting a spare disk from FAT32 to HFS+ and the drive became unmountable. This never happened to me in earlier versions of OSX, and now it seems to happen every time, and partly why my partitions got all screwy. Any thoughts?

Recovering disk image

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