Recovering files external hard drive

Wasn't sure where to post this. I haven't been on here for awhile, and I'm not used to the "new" structure.
My 1TB LaCie external hard drive - which had my Time Machine backups on it (multiple ones unfortunately) no longer mounts. I downloaded some file recovery software which can manage to find files, but not any file sorting information or names.
The first time I ran the software (it runs through Terminal), I let it go about 5.5 hours, and it had recovered approximately 1,100 folders worth of files, each folder holding 500 files (all named generically), and estimated that it had 66+ hours left to go. Most of the files (around 30,000) were txt files which were useless garbage. There were also many of the files I wanted (old photos & files from college), however, there is no chance I will ever have time to go through all the files it had at that point, let alone another 66+ hours worth.
I started recovery over, this time setting limitations on file types (no more txt files), as well as other files I know I don't need. Once again after the same amount of time, I'm in a similar situation. Less files, but lots of random pngs and crap from websites I don't even remember.
As far as I can tell, a LOT of these files have many many versions. I'm going to assume maybe from the multiple Time Machines? There are photos from when I went to college that were classmates pictures, that I don't remember ever having saved to my computer. There's what I can only imagine are cut up mangled files from the inner workings of Adobe CS3, and tons of crap from what I imagine must be old internet caching.
Anyway, I'm not sure what my question is, but I'm mostly wondering if anyone else has had a hard drive with their "Time Machine" backups on it fail. And if so, any advice for sorting out the mess of many duplicated files? Perhaps I would be better served to use different software...but this was free, and I already spent $92 on a new external hard drive to recover files to. However, if someone knows of a decent recovery program that might save me a bit of time, I suppose it would be worth it. It just seems most of them have no guarantees, and I don't want to shell out $100, just to be sitting in the same puddle of files.
Thanks!

Kappy wrote:
In any case if you connect the drive to your computer, then open Disk Utility, does the drive appear on your Desktop? If not, does it appear in DU's device list in the sidebar?
The new external hard drive appears in disc utility, but not the old external hard drive with which I'm having problems.
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.
So, I guess you're saying that any of those you mention are better than Disc Warrior for my problem. Is that right?
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Okay, I have now disconnected the external hard drive. I hadn't realized that there was the possibility of overwriting files on the EXTERNAL hard drive.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.
Okay, I'll do that, but what about just repairing the external hard drive? Isn't that possible? I mean, couldn't it be something like a loose connection? However, I have certainly noticed that hard drive repair is not mentioned nearly as much as data recovery. There must be a reason for that.

Similar Messages

How to move from a "recovered data external hard drive" to the new Computer?

Computer 1's hard drive crash and all programs and data were recovered professionally and sent to me on an External Hard Drive. Computer 1 was on Windows 7. I can fun the program off of the External Hard drive fine, when connected to my my new Computer. I click on the .exe file and it pulls up the catalogue as it should. All off of the recovery drive.
The new Computer, is on Windows 8.1. How do I get the Adobe Catalogues moved/copied to the new Computer?
I redownload Adobe 10 onto my new 8.1 Computer from the Adobe website. Using the new download, I was able to open the Catalogue on the External Drive (F). Cannot find a way to "relocate" the Catalogue to the new computer. The pictures have already been copied to the new computer.
Please help!!!!! Desperate not to lose the organization (tagging/dating) etc in 30,000 pictures+.
Kay

Before we can give a solution, we need more information and we must be clear about the details of the recovery.
From your post, I assume that the external drive contains a copy of your picture files, with probably exactly the same folder path. I think that that path is identical in Win7 and Win8 (it was not in XP).
You have reinstalled Photoshop Elements 10 in your new computer.
So the main point is : what about your old catalogs ? It's quite possible that the professional recovery has also made a copy of those.
You'll have to search the external drive for one or several folders containing a 'catalog.pse10db' file.
If you find one or several, select the newest in date (or the biggest), the folder containing it is the catalog you are looking for.
If you don't find one, be sure that the explorer is set to show hidden files. Without catalogs, you can't restore your organization
Now, when you have found the catalog (the folder), you can do this test. With PSE and Organizer closed, double click on the 'catalog.pse10db' file. That should open the organizer with the catalog. Since the files are not in the same location as before, all links in the catalog will be wrong : different drive identification and perhaps different folder structure. That test should show you the thumbnails (the catalog cache in the folder should have been recovered; if not it's not that important, the thumbnails cache will be recreated automatically).
Now, how to 'reconnect' all files, that depends on what you want to do: keep them in the external drive or copy them back to the main internal drive. The problem will be either to update the catalog database to point to the new location or to recreate the same drive identification as before : letter and drive serial number, exactly same folder tree. We can discuss those options when you have made the first test.
If that goes well, don't worry about the location of the catalog : you can move it either from the catalog manager or manually.

PC back up files -- External hard drive -- Mac?

I just reformatted the hard drive on my Mac Book (running Mac OS X 10.5.8), and plan to use it as my primary machine. But I've got system back-up files from an old PC on an external hard drive (was running Windows 7) that I'd like to transfer over if possible. Mostly .mp3 files and documents. The hard drive itself is compatible with both platforms.
Is this even possible?

Is this even possible?
Yes. Hook it up and copy the files over.

IMovie cannot find the video files (external hard drive) but they are in the project?

As the integrated hard drive on my iMac is getting too small, I moved all my iPhoto files to an external hard drive.
I made a movie after this change and it worked perfect until I should finish the movie. Here I get the message the the media files are missing.
This is strange as I can watch the movie in the project in the iMovie library.
I cannot finish the move nor share it.
Can somebody help me?
My imovie is version 10.0.3 and I am running Maverick.
Thanks!
Steen

Can you give me the info I wasked for in the other thread?

Satellite L40: How do I recover files from Hard Drive

Hi
Can anyone help me please. About one week ago I started experiencing a clicking sound coming from my Satellite L40 laptop. My laptop froze and when I restarted it, I was directed to the system setup with a message at the bottom saying
"Pri Master Hard Drive Disk SMART status bad, Backup and replace.
Press F2 to presume."
I have pressed F2 but I haven't a clue what to do?
Can anyone tell me how to backup my files before my hard drive has completly gone or if it has gone can I use another device to get them off.
I have tried to use the recovery disk but the disk is not responding??
Please help
Pete

Hi
This messages looks like an warning notification from the S.M.A.R.T.
It does mean that your HDD will eventually fail.
It could happen next days or it may not happen for a few months but the SMART capability has detected that the drive is going bad so it should be replaced as soon as possible.
It looks like your notebook is not very old so the warranty should cover all replacements.
I see only one way to access and backup the data. Possibly you could buy an external USB SATA HDD enclosure and could connect the HDD to another computer.
Im not sure if you will be able to access the HDD due to the malfunction but if you want you could try this.
Good luck

MacbookPro - recovering files from hard drive before formatting ?

I have recently had a problem where my MBP won't start up. It gets as far as the Apple sign and has a loading circle but doesn't get any further. I have inserted my OS disc, gone into utilities. My disc is verified and has no errors, but still doesn't start up, the next thing i wanted to do was archive and install but it requires 1 gig more than i have to do this !! I am now wondering whether I can get my music and photos off there and then reformat ? or what i should do next ?

Do you have access to another Apple machine? If so, get a firewire cable and try mounting your damaged HD machine in firewire target mode on the other machine (ie. connect the damaged machine to a good one via the firewire cable, boot the good machine, and then boot the damaged machine while holding the "T" key down). You may be able to see the target drive and drag your music and pictures folder to another drive.

How to recover files from an external hard drive

I just got a brand spankin' new iMac yesterday. I've never had an Apple computer before so I was unfamiliar with Time Machine. I called my husband in to help me out thinking he would be more tech-saavy than me, clearly I was mistaken! He backed up my computer onto our WD external hard drive that we had stored ALL of our photos on. Before it would let him go any further is stays you must erase the previous back up or something (which we didn't really know what that meant). So now that my new iMac is backed up ALL of my pictures and files are erased. Please tell me if there is ANY way possible to recover those files? These are pictures of when my daughter was born all the way up through now!! Please help!!! Thanks!
PS. I don't know what operating system or anything like that I am using. I literally just got it out of the box last night so whatever comes on the computer!!

Click anywhere on the open desktop so that the Finder menus are displayed at the top of the screen.
Click Go > Network
Double click the Time Capsule icon, then double click the icon representing the drive to mount it on the Mac's desktop. It is named "Data" unless you have changed it
You can drag/drop files to the "Data" icon on the desktop
235 GB is going to take forever if you try to do this using wireless. If at all possible, connect an Ethernet cable from your Mac to one of the LAN <-> ports on the Time Capsule.
Even using Ethernet, you are probably looking at 10-12 hours for the file transfer. All bets are off with wireless only, but a guess would be several days....or even more.

How do I recover files from an external Hard Drive?

I have an external Hard Drive that has somehow lost communication with my Mac Mini. It won't mount. When I attempt to give it first aid it says first aid failed. This is what it says.
Verifying volume “MicroNet 250GB External”
Invalid Volume Header
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid node structure
The volume MicroNet 250GB External needs to be repaired.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
Volume needs repair
Then when I click repair it shows this.
Verify and Repair disk “MicroNet 250GB External”
Invalid Volume Header
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid node structure
Volume check failed.
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit
1 HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error
I would be very grateful to hear that I can recover my files(I have tens of thousands of photos, and about 20Gb of music) without paying much(Free would be better).
Thanks
Message was edited by: dudebob

Post over here -> < ahref="http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=758">Using Mac OS X Tiger
since this has nothing to do with the iPod.
Check out Disk Warrior and TechTools Pro.
Might want to also update your OS to 10.4.11.

I was trying to back up my mac by using my external hard drive. Without realizing it, time machine erased all my backups from my other computers. Is there any way to recover these files? I can't even get the external hard drive to work on my pc.

I was trying to use my external hard drive to back up my mac computer. It had files on it from my pc computer. Time machine erased all my existing files. (I thought it was only going to erase the duplicate files and rewrite them). Is there anyway to recover these files from my external hard drive. My mac has renamed the hard drive time maching and it will no longer show up on my pc. What can I do?

Yes, the Old Master file has a folder for each year where I find all photos from that specific year. I am attaching a screen shot of the file.
In the meantime i have managed to download all photos (it did not download any video files though in mpg, avi, 3gp, m4v,mp4 and mov format) to a new iphoto library. Unfortunately the photos are quite mixed and often doubled up. I ma considering to purchase iphoto library which checks all duplicates in iphoto. this will save me a lot of time. What do you think?

External Hard Drive Won't Mount- Need to recover files

Hello Everyone,
I am hoping that one of you fine mac experts may be able to assist ~
Problem: External Seagate FreeAgent Desktop USB external hard drive
won't mount on desktop=ie: no access to my important files.. Please Help!
Details:
External seagate freeagent 500 GB Desktop USB HD ( only 2 months old)
(using for document / file backup-not as a startup disc)
on my Mac G3 350 MZ Blue & White Tower /768 ram/ running OSX 10.1.5 & OS9.2~
~
Problem: Started using the external 500 GB HD 2 months ago -with no problems-until this morning. Tried to double click to open it to access files
and got the "beach ball of death" and needed to restart.
My trusty G3 started up fine, however, the external HD was now
not showing up on the desktop as normal. I troubleshooted -by restarting,
trying different a/c plugs/ different USB ports , ran disk utility..called
seagate -not much help . Seagate said to try the HD on another mac-which I did-
a G5 tower- same problem.
~
The External hard drive will show up in disk utility, but is grayed out.
and when click "mount" same two messages keep showing:
message 1: "a disk attempting to mount as unknown has failed verification or has failed to
mount.please use disk utility to check the disk"
~
message 2- when unplugging and repluggin the usb in-and upon
restart:" you have inserted a disk containg no volumes that mac osx
can read to use unreadable volumes,click initialize to continue with the disk inserted ,click continue"
~
( I really need access to these files- and do not want to re-initialize the HD!!)
I ran Disk Utility /first aid "verify & repair , the following info came up:
Repairing disk "main backup 2007 ".
Checking HFS Plus volume.
Checking Extents Overflow file.
Checking Catalog file.
Invalid key length ( <<<IN RED )
Repair completed. "
~~
Though it said the repair was completed, the "invalid key length" issue
still comes up when re-running disk utility...Hard drive would still not
mount on desktop-even after restarting .
~~~~~
If there is a mac genius out there that can help?- it would be greatly
appreciated. I have tried to call seagate several times in the last several hours-
1st time-they disconnected me after being on hold 10 minutes-2nd call
I was put on hold for 40 minutes ..Finally spoke to someone ( they are not mac users or mac experts!)and he said I would need to send it to Seagate's Data Recovery-... for a fee of course!
~~~
At this point, I am hoping to just get the files and photos off
the hard drive- I heard about Disk Warrior-should I use that and if so
what version?
Thank you very much!
L

Will zapping the PRAM be of any use in getting the external to mount on the desktop?
Your external Hard drive is already recognized. But it cannot be mounted on the desktop due to its directory damage. You can certainly Zap the PRAM, and it will not hurt anything, but I am skeptical that it will change the situation.
Do you think the Disk Warrior 4.0 cd will even work on my G3 350MHZ running Mac OS 10.1.5?
If you boot from the CD and run it from the CD, absolutely yes. If you attempt to INSTALL it from a download or a CD, probably not.
Have you ever used Disc Warrior and is using it complicated?
I own and use Disk Warrior. You select the drive to be rebuilt, it builds a proposed new directory from the information and file fragments available.
When complete, it will provide a list of problems encountered, tell you what files have been placed in the "Rescued Items" folder, and allow you too look at your drive using the proposed new directory. Your only decision is whether the new directory seems to be an improvement over the old \[in your case, hopelessly corrupted] directory. You then tell it whether to replace the old directory with the proposed new directory, or to abandon its work and leave your Hard Drive unchanged.
Is there a good chance that the ext HD will still have my files on it- or do you think from what I've described that they are gone ?
From what you have described, your files are very likely to still be there. Sometimes in a situation like this, a handful of files cannot be recovered.
My other thought was to take the external HD there and have them try to recover the files.
Make sure you completely understand the costs involved. File recovery using a service like DriveSavers can run into many hundreds of dollars. They are prepared to disassemble your drive in a clean room and replace controller boards and read/write heads to achieve success. Your drive has serious, but not fatal, Directory damage. The Hardware, and most of your files, are likely just fine.

Recovering files from external hard drive

My external hard drive stopped working. Everytime I tried to access it, I'd get one or more of the following messages: "Time Machine Error. The backup disc is not available. Time Machine couldn't complete the backup to "My Passport for Mac. The backup disc is not available. Your Time Machine backup disc can't be found."
That didn't cause me to worry, because my computer was in good working condition, so I just bought another external harddrive. However, I later discovered that I needed much of the information in the old external hard drive, because I had lost a great number of files from my computer. [I have to add that I partitioned my computer's harddrive about the same time under the step-by-step instructions of a second-level Apple technician.] Anyway, my problem now is to extract the files from my old external harddrive.
Data recovery is out. It's just too expensive. Ideally, I would just like to get my external hard drive working again. If that's not possible, I have to find another way, or just give up. Anyway, today I came to ask about Disc Warrior. I have read some reports that it can be used to do what I need done. Does anyone have any experience, successful experience, with it? Oh, I just discovered and downloaded StellarPhoenixMacData, but I haven't tried it yet.
Finally, judging by sound and vibration, my old external hard drive seems to be working. There is no clicking or other unusual sound, which I understand is a good sign.

Kappy wrote:
In any case if you connect the drive to your computer, then open Disk Utility, does the drive appear on your Desktop? If not, does it appear in DU's device list in the sidebar?
The new external hard drive appears in disc utility, but not the old external hard drive with which I'm having problems.
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.
So, I guess you're saying that any of those you mention are better than Disc Warrior for my problem. Is that right?
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Okay, I have now disconnected the external hard drive. I hadn't realized that there was the possibility of overwriting files on the EXTERNAL hard drive.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.
Okay, I'll do that, but what about just repairing the external hard drive? Isn't that possible? I mean, couldn't it be something like a loose connection? However, I have certainly noticed that hard drive repair is not mentioned nearly as much as data recovery. There must be a reason for that.

Formatted external hard drive, trying to recover files I missed off when backing up.

I recently formatted my seagate 500gb external hard drive, thinking all the files/projects were backed up.
Some of them weren't (I'm not sure how/why, could be human error or the transfer failed but unfortunately i was rushing and didn't check)
but this includes includes my current FCPX events and projects which were on the library of the external hard drive.
I've run Stellar Phoenix Mac Data recovery on said hard drive

So..
I ran the recovery software on the hard drive, I've managed to salvage some .mov media files and a bunch of other stuff I think could be related to what I need.
I've recovered these onto another external drive but when I go to play them it says 'error quicktime cannot be used to play'
The thumbnail is quicktime and it opens in quicktime as default.
I was wondering if anyone knows how I can access the files or do you need me to provide more info than that to know how to do so.
If anyone has any further knowledge of recovering any sorts of FCPX or video files from a formatted hard drive then I'd be very appreciative.
I imagine the FCP projects and events or anything to do with that are gone forever, just can't work out anything else I can do to salvage clips.
Anything you think may help my situation would be great, I've just lost out on a lot of money from these projects just before christmas so even moral support will help ha!
Cheers.

I have an external hard drive 1 TB - it says that 559GB has been used , but I can't see any files at all. Is there a way to recover those files. I have a lot of photos on it. I have an IMac and running MAC OSX versuib 10.7.5 I am new to Mac.

I have an external hard drive 1 TB - it says that 559GB has been used , but I can't see any files at all.
Is there a way to recover those files. I have a lot of photos on it. I have an IMac and running MAC OSX versuib 10.7.5 I am new to Mac, so I hope somebody can give me some advice.
Cheers

if it's ntfs microsofts filesystem then you need a windows machine to recover them

HT201250 Is there a possibility to recover erased files from an external hard drive that was reformatted by the Time Machine?

Is there a possibility to recover erased files from an external hard drive that was reformatted by the Time Machine?

Basics of File Recovery
Files in Trash
If you simply put files in the Trash you can restore them by opening the Trash (left-click on the Trash icon) and drag the files from the Trash to your Desktop or other desired location. OS X also provides a short-cut to undo the last item moved to the Trash -press COMMAND-Z.
If you empty the Trash the files are gone. If a program does an immediate delete rather than moving files to the Trash, then the files are gone. Recovery is possible but you must not allow any additional writes to the hard drive - shut it down. When files are deleted only the directory entries, not the files themselves, is modified. The space occupied by the files has been returned to the system as available for storage, but the files are still on the drive. Writing to the drive will then eventually overwrite the space once occupied by the deleted files in which case the files are lost permanently. Also if you save a file over an existing file of the same name, then the old file is overwritten and cannot be recovered.
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 to import recovered files from an external hard drive

My hard drive crashed. I got a new one and of course lost my itunes. I had the recovered data put on an external hard drive. How do I re import my data back into Itunes?

Hello David,
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities!
If you have the entire iTunes library folder on that recovered drive, you can copy it to your new computer and use this article to choose that iTunes library that you just copied to the new computer.
iTunes: How to open an alternate iTunes Library file or create a new one
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1589
Otherwise, you would need to use the Add File to Library function.
Adding music and other content to iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1473
Regards,
Sterling

Recovering files external hard drive

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