HP SimpleSave used as external drive - suddenly back to unformatted unusable drive - LOST ALL DATA
I was in the process of moving photos from my laptop to my external 1TB SimpleSave drive and all of a sudden the drive lost it's format and appears as the HP Launcher and an unusable 'Local Drive' (my drive name is gone, all my data is gone including the photos I just copied over an hour ago).
Are these drives unstable? I've hardly used the thing and am now wary of using it. Is there a way for me to recover the lost formated drive? I have a second copy of most of the data, but I just lost 500 photos.
Ok, i have found a solution...
What has happened is Windows has changed the hard drive from its original form, a NTFS format to a RAW format.
According to other forums, this happens when Windows detects a partially incomplete re-format attempt. I do remember formatting the external a week after i got it, but it seemed fine???? moving on....
From what i have come across, RAW is an obsolete format that XP, Vista and Windows 7 dont recognize anymore... short of having an old pc that runs Win 95, Win 98 which WILL recognise it, i tried several different ways, heaps of different recovery tools etc etc...
i "found" a program called Power Data Recovery! It rules so much!
anyway, i installed it, and done the following -
from the program front screen -
- Advanced Recovery
- click on the drive (in my case its displaying as Physical Drive, 930.86Gb)
- click on full scan
Initially it said it was going to take 600hours but bare with it... it will speed up...
i was too curious to wait for the full scan so i stopped it at like 7%, then previewed the files it had recovered, checked the tick box on a couple of mp3 i wanted to preview, and clicked save...
-saved them to my desktop
-tested the files (mp3s) through winamp and they played fine!
I am just re-starting the recovery process from scratch and will leave overnight.. once completed, I will transfer the recovered files to another external, then re-format the affected external drive again, then transfer the files back to its FIXED home... DONE!
Hope this helps ya'll...
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Why are some of my files now missing when moving from pc to mac when using an external drive
I use an external drive for all my files. I moved to a Mac Mini last week. Now I can not view a majority of my backed up files on My Book external drive.
Any ideas???? Thanks in advance,See Make a split library portable. A portable library can be stored entirely on an external drive and moved between Mac and Windows computers. iTunes takes a little longer to open the library the first time after each switch. If your drive is currently formatted to NTFS then you will need an additional driver to enable OS X to write to the drive, or simply clone the library to an HFS+ drive.
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I've used an external drive for time machine which has important files on it. After trying to back up my computer, it suddenly needed to be "repaired" by utilities. Now it's not being "seen" at all! How do I recover my important files off the drive?
If the external drive can be seen at all in Disk Utility, follow the instructions for repair here.
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Emergency Backups (Data Recovery)
A) Format an external disk:
(This will erase all data on the external disk.)
Boot in recovery mode (power then Command-R).
Alternative: Network recovery boot (power then Command-Option-R keys)
To format (and erase) the destination recovery disk:
Plug in the drive you are about to erase.
Select the volume that is NOT your system disk.
Click on Partition.
Pull down under Partition Layout to 1 Partition.
Click on Options…
Select GUID Partition Table.
Name: Emergency Backup (or whatever you prefer)
Format: Select Mac OS Extended (journaled)
Click Apply.
Click Partition.
B) Try to boot in Safe Mode (power then Shift key).
(This will be a slow boot. Be patient.)
If it won’t boot in Safe Mode, jump to C.
If it boots in Safe Mode, try to boot in normal mode.
If that fixed your problem then start a Time Machine backup.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1427
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-4055
If not, boot in Safe Mode again.
Go > Computer.
Double click on the system disk.
Drag the Users folder to the recovery disk.
C) To clone the disk:
Boot in recovery mode.
Select Disk Utility.
Try to repair the system disk twice.
Whether or not the repair succeeds:
Drag and drop the system disk to Source:
Drag an drop Emergency Backup to Destination:
(Take care not to reverse this order.)
Click Restore (the lower Restore button).
Once your system is healthy, maintain two reasonably current backups. (Time machine restores can fail.)
Create either two Time Machine backups (good) or one or more Time Machine backup(s) and one or more bootable-clone backup(s) (better).
Use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to create bootable-clone recovery disks.
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and https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6031 -
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The complexity with this idea is the software has to run from a Mac computer on your network.. so you need a Mac turned on, probably most of the day.
It isn't possible to partition the TC although you can create a image area.
The software would have to copy the material, that means all files to be copied, go from USB drive, back to the Mac, then back to the TC, and written to the drive. In other words you have just added Network congestion, although a proper incremental backup type software will not actually use a lot of capacity.
Finally it will be slow.. network drives are slower than internal drives. Well USB connected drive is much slower than the same drive connected directly to the computer.. and if the drive is connected directly to a computer it can be shared with the network.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/4
Read carefully the speed of the USB drive plugged into the TC. -
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The slightly bigger question is whether you want to move all movie content to the external drive (essentially meaning that drive will always need to be attached when you're working with your videos), or whether you just want to archive older videos off to the external drive.
If you want to move all videos, then just move the 'Movies' folder in your home directory to the external drive, then create an alias of the external 'Movies' back in to your home directory. Now the 'Movies' icon in your home directory will point to the external drive and everything will just work (as long as the external drive is attached when you launch iMovie)
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You must understand the purpose and implications of encryption before deciding whether to use it.
Encryption locks your data with a password. If you forget that password, the data is lost beyond any chance of recovery. Neither Apple nor anyone else will be able to help you recover that data if you don't know the password.
By the same token, the password must be strong enough to provide the security you want. For example, if you're the potential target of industrial espionage by a government or large corporation, you need the strongest possible password. To create and manage such a password safely is a task in itself, not to be undertaken lightly.
If you're only concerned about casual snooping by someone with no special skill, a weak, easily-remembered password is appropriate.
But regardless of the strength of the password, if you lose it, the data is gone forever.
Another point to remember is that if you encrypt your data on one storage device, you must also encrypt it on all other storage devices that would be accessible to the same attacker. Otherwise the data isn't protected. For example, if you keep your computer and your backup drive in the same room, and the internal drive of the computer is not encrypted, then there's no point in encrypting the backup drive. -
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TipsMoving the iPhoto library is safe and simple - quit iPhoto and drag the iPhoto library intact as a single entity to the external drive - depress the option key and launch iPhoto using the "select library" option to point to the new location on the external drive - fully test it and then trash the old library on the internal drive (test one more time prior to emptying the trash)
And be sure that the External drive is formatted Mac OS extended (journaled) (iPhoto does not work with drives with other formats) and that it is always available prior to launching iPhoto
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LN -
Using an External Drive for Time Machine and Other Things
I have a 2TB external drive which I use for Time Machine Backups on my 2 macs. The macs have HDs of 500GB and 160GB so the external drive has ample space for backups.
Is it okay to use the external drive for other things that I don't care if they aren't backed up (like digital copies of DVDs)? i.e. Will Time Machine cause any issues if a drive is used for more than just Time Machine backups?rgraves wrote:
I have a 2TB external drive which I use for Time Machine Backups on my 2 macs. The macs have HDs of 500GB and 160GB so the external drive has ample space for backups.
Maybe. See #1 in [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
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Thank you.The complexity with this idea is the software has to run from a Mac computer on your network.. so you need a Mac turned on, probably most of the day.
It isn't possible to partition the TC although you can create a image area.
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http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/4
Read carefully the speed of the USB drive plugged into the TC. -
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There is a Windows based utility that will allow one to change the location of the 'My Music' folder, but you appear to be running a Mac.
You may find more appropriate help in the iTunes for Mac Discussions.
If you are running Windows, post back and some info can be provided.
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How can I share my iPhoto library with another user on the same iMac for use with iCloud. I do not want to use an external drive.
ThanksFor iPhoto 09 (version 8.0.2) and later:
What you mean by 'share'.
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Any user can drag a pic from the Shared Library to their own in the iPhoto Window.
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Hi. I've been using an external drive for time machine back ups and decided to revert to my internal drive, but it isn't available in the time machine options. The only available option is to set up a time capsule, which I don't own.
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Thanks!50 Gb free on your internal drive is relly very low and of course not enought for a any kind of backup.
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