Recover external drive with file salvage

Hi guys, By mistake I hit erase on disk utility on the wrong drive. I didnt use the drive at all after that so file salvage did recovered a lot of stuff. My problem is the media is grouped in the folders dv and quictime but Im not able to see the video, on the dv folder the quictimes have all square colors around the screen and the quictime folder is all white. and on both cases theres no audio. Im doing the process again and see if it works but does anyone has any experience recovering an external drive with it? is there another way to recover the media?
Please let me know, im desperate to recover this drive!
thanks a lot

My recommendation is use one Caldigit in RAID 0 for editing (we'll call it C 1) and use the other Caldigit (C 2) as a backup.
When you get new material, copy it to C 1, then to C 2. Take C 2 off line. You can not accidentally erase a drive if it is not connected and/or turned on.
Edit your projects.
At the end of the day, back up C 1 to C 2.
As C 1 and C 2 fill, you will need to move older and/or finished material off of them. Get a MacBurly or other 2 drive enclosure with swapable drive bays. You could also just get a simple bare drive housing like the Voyager Q. Purchase a pair of bare drives (always purchase your drives in pairs). We'll call this first pair: Archive01 and Archive01.back. Backup whatever you need to remove from the Caldigits to your Archive01 and Archive01.back drives. Test that the material transferred ok to the new drives then take them offline. If you are using the Voyager, put them on a shelf. Delete what you just copied from the Caldigits.
Rinse and repeat as necessary.
Keep in mind, a drive placed on a shelf and not used is probably more prone to failure than one used constantly. So, every few weeks, spin all the drives up and run disk utility on them to verify they are ok. This gives the heads a workout and keeps the drive from seizing up.
Aren't you glad you asked?
Good luck,
x

Similar Messages

?s about restoring library, recovered 800+ photos with File Salvage

I made two errors that caused me to lose the photos I'd imported to my new internal hard drive. I was determined to start off right and stick to good rules of organization I've learned on this forum. The errors were that I deselected in advance preferences to have iPhoto import the original (thanks again Old Toad, for solving that mystery for me) AND then I emptied the trash and of course the originals got dumped. OT pointed me to File Salvage and I decided to pony up with the purchase. Last night I pulled out huge groups of jpegs onto my external hard drive.
There seemed to be no way in File Salvage to focus only on the jpegs in the already emptied trash. I think it was showing me all jpegs on my computer. I started finding a photo I wanted, hitting restore and then looking for my next photo. I quickly realized that each photo was then appearing on my ex HD in two layers of folders and each was called jpeg 1. There is no way I wanted to open all those individual folders to get to each photo. There is no apparent way to select some of the photos as you preview them in File Salvage to do a mass export of only the ones you selected. I decided I'd rather transfer huge bunches of them and use Preview to cull out all the backgrounds, and tons unwanted jpegs. This would not be an acceptable solution if I didn't have a brand new HD. I cannot imagine wading through years' worth of jpegs or larger libraries.
Now I have a few photos of hundreds of images. I have a few questions about when I get ready to re-import to iPhoto:
Is there anyway to reunite the photos with the PICT title assigned to it when taken? I want them to show the time and date they were taken too. I don't know how I'll sort them back into rolls without that aid. Right now they are a completely jumbled mess sorted by size so I could rule out the thousands of jpegs in the small KB size and zero in on the 1-4 MB size my camera produces. (Strangely I found a few in the 18-20 MB size???)
I will be putting the originals into folders to regroup them with the subjects or events they were taken from but that still leaves me hundreds of photos in each category in some cases. I'm so used to using iPhoto to sort by name, title, date and I don't know if all that gets masked with the recovery and makes it look like all these photos were taken on the same day.
I still have my thumbnail aliases neatly organized in iPhoto from when I thought I imported all the missing photos. When I reimport do I get more thumbnails? Should I empty my iPhoto library completely before I bring the originals in? Remember that I'm working with a brand new HD and these mistakes affected everything I have in iPhoto. Right now iPhoto only contains the thumbnails, metadata information, and the modified photos that were rotated in my camera.
I'm looking at hours of tedious work to restore my photos and any suggestions that will streamline my efforts would be welcome.

MacLoyal:
I know of two ways you can rename them, temporarily, sequentially so you can get them into a single or a few folders.
1 - create a "container" folder and put all of the other folders into it.
2 - download and launch the iView MediaPro demo.
3 - in the new catalog window drag the "container" folder.
All of the files will be imported into the catalog. You can check to see if the capture date in the files has been preserved by selecting a photo and clicking on the Info button at the top. Then in the Photo EXIF section you can see if the capture date is intact. If so then you can sort on the capture date to get them in chronological order. (If needed click on the house button in the tool bar to see all photos in the catalog).
Now select all and go to the Action->Batch Rename menu item. There select Date and the number from 1. In the #### field put in 3. That will make the last part of the file name -001.jpg, -002.jpg, etc. so they will list correctly in the finder. The old and new names will show in the bottom like this. If you have more than 999 files to rename make that #### field = 4.
Once they have been renamed you can group them as desired and select and drag them to new folders on the desktop that you've created for that purpose. Of drag directly into an open iPhoto window to create a roll of those particular images. To indicate which ones you've moved hit the 1,2 ...9 keys to assign a color label to them after moving.
The other way is, after putting all of those folders into a container folder, open the container and type Command-F. Then in the Search window select the following criteria:
File type = image
File size is greater than 100 KB
That will find all of the full sized image within all of those folders. Do a select all and drag into an open iPhoto window. The files will be copied and will be titled jpg 1.jpg, jpg 1_2.jpg, jpg 1_3.jpg, etc.
You can then do your arranging however you want, batch change the title, sort by date if the the capture date is still there. If you want to physically rename the files you'll have to export them to the desktop using the Use Title option. Then reimport to the library and delete the first set.

Partition external drive with files already on it - ?

I just received a 465g glyph harddrive with some video files on it from our editor that i need to convert. The idea was that I was going to use the same drive since it has 444g of free space on it, but now i realize that the entire drive is formatted to ntfs. Is there any way i can partition this without erasing/having to copy the files first?
Thanks!

By itself, MacOS X can read but cannot write to NTFS-format HD's. On the other hand, Windoze computers cannot read or write to Apple-format HD's. If you need to exchange files between the two using a HD, the only middle ground would be formatting in FAT32, which both can read and write. If you must keep the HD in NTFS format (company policy, etc.) you will need to install a third-party driver on MacOS X so it can write to that disk; for example, [Paragon makes a shareware option|http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac>.
You can erase the volume by selecting it (not the device) on Disk Utility, clicking on the Erase tab, choosing the appropiate format and applying.
You can repartition the drive (creating new volumes) by using a workaround because the Leopard Disk Utility has a bug when dealing with NTFS partitions. [Here's a writeup of what to do|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=7783365#7783365].
In either case, the current contents of the HD will be lost.

Trying to backup one of my iPhoto libraries I keep getting a error message that basically says that the file could not be backed up because there is another file on the external drive with the same name, etc. There is no other file.

While trying to copy one of my iPhoto libraries to an external hard drive I get the following error message "You can’t copy “iPhoto Library old” because it has the same name as another item on the destination volume, and that volume doesn’t distinguish between upper- and lowercase letters in filenames." There is no other file on the external drive with this name. I have asked this question before and was told that there are some duplicate photos (files) in my library and I needed to go to "show file contents" and look at certain files to find duplicates and delete the duplicates. I did all of this and the library will still not copy and always stops copying in the exact same place on each attempt. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

You've been deleting your actual Photos.
Don't change anything in the iPhoto Library Folder via the Finder or any other application. iPhoto depends on the structure as well as the contents of this folder. Moving things, renaming things, deleting them or otherwise making changes will prevent iPhoto from working and could even cause you to damage or lose your photos.
Best way forward now is to recover the surviving Originals from this library and start over from scratch.
Regards
TD

Re Time Machine I have an external hard drive with files I backed up manually over the past 2 years 1TB of memory. I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything. will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous bac

Re Time Machine
I have an external hard drive with files I backed up manually over the past 2 years 1TB of memory.
I am finally taking the leap to use Time machine to back everything.
will I have to reformat that drive, thus wiping my previous back ups?
can I split it the drive in two partitions?
Also
as I have two separate Macbook Pro's- one older than the other.
OSX 10.68
the other is
OSX 10.75
can I back them up separately?
or even synch and merge files and folders etc? between the two?

You CAN use a drive with files already on it to store Time Machine backups. But long term, that is not recommended. You do not need to reformat or re-partition the drive to do this. Once Time Machine Backups are established, you could remove the old files.
But do not delete Time Machines files with the Finder -- that can cause it to lose its place and lose everything.
With the cost of backup drives under US$100, it might be a better idea in the long run to get another drive. Best results from Time Machine is a drive about 3 times larger than the drive(s) you are backing up.

Using an external drive with shared files (iPhoto, iTunes), attached to a Time Capsule, can the contents of the external drive be backed-up to the internal Time Capsule drive? Perhaps a RAID1 mirror to a partition?

Using an external drive with shared files (iPhoto, iTunes), attached to a Time Capsule, can the contents of the external drive be backed-up to the internal Time Capsule drive? Perhaps a RAID1 mirror to a partitioned Time Capsule? I understand that the Time Machine (software) cannot backup a networked drive (the external) and that Time Capsule (the router/wireless hard drive) does not have its own backup software... so it won't backup the connected drive. What I would like is an alternate solution for having an automated backup of a networked drive. A 2TB Time Capsule has more than enough space for Time Machine backups of my family of Macbooks, so I had hoped to mirror a 500GB external drive (with shared media files) to a portion of the Time Capsule internal hard drive. I assume this would require a partition of the Time Capsule drive. If not, would the sparse file from the various computers being backed up need to be copied to the external drive as part of the RAID1 setup? This seems like overkill for the Time Machine backup, but it would cover the media files.

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.

I have a seagate external hard drive with files copied from windows pc. If I will download NTFS driver from seagate to my mac, could I install it safely without harming my files in the external hard drive? I am afraid I may erase all files in there.

I have a seagate external hard drive with files transferred from my windows pc. If I will download NTFS Driver from seagate to my mac, could I install it safely without harming my files? I am afraid.. I might erase all my important files during the installation..

Thanks a lot! I have already downloaded Paragon Driver and it works well with seagate external hard drive. I am copying as of now my important files from my mac to it. However, I have only the trial version which will expire in 10 days. I don't have credit card to buy for it.

Using AirPort Time Capsule as an external drive with access to files by guest account

Is it possible to use my AirPort Time Capsule as an external drive with access to files by a guest account?
I would like to store a large number of folders containg photographs on my AirPort Time Capsule and allow anyone with a password to access the photographs - at the time of viewing the Time Capsule would be connected to the internet but I wouldn't want users to actually access anything other than the files on the Time Capsule - is this possible? if so any help in configuring it would be really helpful.

No it is not possible.. Guest is just that.. a guest that is allowed permission to access the internet but none of the local files.
To give a person access to the TC they must have password to access your normal network..
From there it is up to you how you do this.. people cannot actually access files on your computers unless you give them share and password permissions for that.. you can even setup accounts on the TC although I recommend against it.. if you want shared photos anyway. All security on a TC is illusion.. merely pressing the reset and it is all blown away.. so if you are concerned about security don't put stuff on the TC people should not access.. or like your TM backups ensure they are encrypted.
A person can then access you TC and the photos.. but what else on the network??

Have an external hard drive, with files on it, no longer showing on desktop

I've had an external hard drive for a few months now, and about 3 weeks ago, it stopped showing up on the desktop and when i search for it, nothing shows up. All of the cords are still connected.
Is there a way to fix this so i don't destroy the files that are on there?

Did you try to see if the drive would show up in "Disk Utility"?
First unplug any other firewire/usb devices (except your mouse and keyboard). Sometimes my external firewire drive gives me some issues when my iSight camera is connected. Normally no issues, but once in while they don't like each other and I have to unplug them and plug them back in (sometimes a reboot too).
Unplug and re-plug the external drive connection into your Mac and turn the external drive on. Then go to your Applications folder --> Utilities folder --> open Disk Utility. If the external drive shows up...highlight the drive and click on Repair Permissions. If the drive still does not mount, try swapping out the firewire or USB cable to the external drive with a known good working cable and try rebooting you Mac with your drive plugged in and powered on. Try repairing permissions with Disk Utility again. If you know the cable is good and the drive still will not mount, try connecting it to another Mac.
If your drive is now showing up in Disk Utility and in your Finder, you may have just changed a view setting for the showing or not showing of mounted media on the desktop.
Remember back your computer and backup your external drive if there is any data that is not duplicated or stored elsewhere. I hear of a lot people just storing data on their external and only have one physical copy of a file(s). Never. Always have at least 2 copies of your data on at least 2 different drives, DVD, CD, etc. You just never know when a drive will stop. A great drive cloning app is SuperDuper, google it.
Let us know if you are still having issues. If yes, please give more details...drive brand, firewire or usb, iMac model and OS version.

Using the same external drive with Time Machine on new mac?

I recently got a new mac because my old one broke. Thankfully, I had a fresh backup on Time Machine ready to restore onto my new computer. But when I try to use Time Machine with my new computer, it keeps wanting to do a whole new backup. It won't recognize the latest backup to only add new or changed files.
Here's a breakdown of my events:
new computer
restore Time Machine on new computer at install
want to continue using the external drive with Time Machine from where I left off (only adding new files since the last backup) on my new computer
Time Machine wants to do a whole new backup
Question: How can I continue to use my existing external hard drive with Time Machine on my new computer, picking up where I left off (not a new, complete backup)?
My old computer was Snow Lepoard, my new one is Lion.

Bergers wrote:
new computer
restore Time Machine on new computer at install
That should have left a "trail" in your SystemMigration log, so Time Machine can figure out what happened and automatically "inherit" the old backups. But sometimes, obviously, that doesn't work.
Since it didn't, there's a chance you can do it manually. See #B6 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting.

Re: Leone's post May 2014 about how to best use an external drive with Aperture

I am trying to find Leone who had a great post May 2014 to Diane. I posted tho same message as a 'Reply' to the Leone/Diane posts but then was worried it would not show up since that was some time ago so I decided I should post it as new. Apologies if it comes through twice. I am having trouble as indicated below:
I found this response to the question about Aperture and external hard drives from last May. I bought a WD My Book 4TB and need to back up photos I have in Aperture (many!) to free up space. I am a photographer and need to be able to plug the external drive in as needed, pull a photo out from the WD and back into Aperture to work on it if needed.
I read your directions to Diane and have the external drive formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). I read the two ways you suggest to move part or all of my library to an external drive and still be able to use it in Aperture with all the metadata saved, as I need to continue to work with the images. I am not completely clear about the advantage of the 'referenced' method but decided to go with the Split Library because it sounded like the Referenced method would still keep originals (and take space) in Aperture. I'm not sure about this, but that was what I chose.
I have backed up my computer, formatted the drive then went to Aperture to begin. I do the 'Export' and it shows the external drive it will go to but when I click 'OK', it says "EXPORT LIBRARY FAILED - Library could not be create because the file system of the destination volume is not supported." I doubled checked to be sure the drive was Journaled which it was. I did call WD and talk to them but they told me this was outside their area.
Also, in Aperture, I have my photos in Projects by yymmdd. Is it possible to transfer Projects into the ext. drive without having to break them out of the Projects?
Any direction anyone might give would be greatly appreciated, Sandy

Hi Sandy,
I suggest taking a week or two to get to know Aperture better before proceeding. Aperture can do many things, and can do what you want. It's important to be specific about what you want, however. From what you've said, it appears that you don't yet know.
bybeeler wrote:
[1] I found this response to the question about Aperture and external hard drives from last May. I bought a WD My Book 4TB and need to back up photos I have in Aperture (many!) to free up space.
[2] I am a photographer and need to be able to plug the external drive in as needed, pull a photo out from the WD and back into Aperture to work on it if needed.
[1] A back-up is a copy of digital files stores on a separate device. A back-up is recommended because drives fail, and humans make mistakes. A back-up is not used to free up storage space.
[2] Aperture can be set up in many equally-usable ways. The program files reside (almost always) on your system drive. The data files can be anywhere you want them, as long as they are on locally-mounted drive(s). The main data file is your Library. The best place for it is on the drive that has the fastest throughput to your logic board. This is, in nearly 100% of machines, the system drive. But Aperture functions well with Libraries of secondary drives — internal or external — with sufficient throughput. USB-3 and Thunderbolt I (& II) provide sufficient throughput for using an Aperture Library on a secondary drive.
Nearly all photographers will fill whatever storage space is available (making data is what photographers do). The question is: what do you do when your Library no longer fits on your system drive? (And remember, you should leave at least 10% (I recommend 20% for heavy users of Aperture) of your system drive free.) The answer depends, primarily, on whether your computer is portable or fixed in location.
If fixed, just buy a more-than-large-enough secondary drive of USB-3 or faster throughput, mount it permanently, and move (using Finder) your Library to it.
If your computer is portable (and you can't increase the on-board storage), you have to select the best from several confusing alternatives:
• Put your Library on an external drive with throughput at least as fast as USB-3
— Pros: Easy to maintain and back-up.
— Cons: Must have drive with you in order to use your Library.
• Leave your Library on your system drive, but relocate your Images' Originals to an external drive.
— Pros: You can work on your Library without having the external drive available.
— Cons: You can't export (except Previews), Print, or make adjustments until your external drive is mounted. Significantly more difficult to administer, especially importing and backing-up.
• Leave your Library and and _some_ of your Images' Originals on your system drive, and relocate most of your Image's Originals to an external drive.
— Pros: You can do any work on those Images whose Originals are stored in the Library regardless of where the external drive is.
— Cons: Yet another level more difficult to administer.
If you are comfortable with the administrative overhead, the third set-up will be the most rewarding. Keep all _current_ Images Originals inside your Library, and routinely relocate the Originals of Images no longer current to the external drive.
In no case is it recommended that you at any time remove from your Library an Image (not the Original — the Image in Aperture) that you expect to ever use again.
HTH,
—Kirby.

Had to wipe my drive so I could do a clean install of snow leopard Now I look every where on how to move bookmarks, address book and I cal settings. I have them back up on a external drive with Time machine but can not move, copy or restore my old sett d

Had to wipe my drive so I could do a clean install of snow leopard. Now I have look every where on how to move bookmarks, address book and I cal settings. I have them back up on a external drive with Time machine but can not move, copy or restore my old settings. The instructions I have found or no help or needs more clarafication on what to do.

Use migration assistant to move your files. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4889

Can I use a 2tb external drive with Time Machine to backup my Mac Mini (256gbSSD + 2tbHDD)?

Can I use a 2tb external drive with Time Machine to backup what I have on my Mac Mini?
My Mac Mini has one 256 SSD and one 2tb HDD. I want to use Time Machine to do a backup of everything.
Would an external 2tb My Passport Drive by Western Digital work for the backup?
It seems like it would not work because the total storage on the Mac Mini is 2304 gigabytes (SSD + HDD).
And the external Western Digital drive is only 2048 in gigabytes versus 2304 gigabytes the Mac Mini has.

No. A Time Machine backup drive should have at least twice the capacity of the drive it backs up. You would need at least a 4 TB backup drive for Time Machine.
Might I suggest as an alternative that you not use Time Machine but a third-party backup utility that simply overwrites older files with new ones such that the backup drive can be the same capacity as the drive backed up.
Suggested Backup Software
1. Carbon Copy Cloner
2. Get Backup
3. Deja Vu
4. SuperDuper!
5. Synk Pro
6. Tri-Backup
Others may be found at MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.

No more external drives with Firewire?

Seems like overnight this technology was discontinued - much to my misfortune.
I need to back up a TON of video files to clear memory cards. I just bought a new drive from Best Buy, but it's write-protected and only has USB connectivity.
What happened to Firewire?
And... can I reformat this drive for my Mac and still get fast enough speeds via USB to make this a scratch disc?
Thanks Final Cut gurus - please pardon my lack of knowledge on this.

FireWire drives are still available, but are harder to find because places like Best Buy feature price over functionality.
If it were me, I'd return the USB drive. Recently, I've found that Amazon dot com has had a nice assortment of external drives with a variety of interfaces at good prices.
Yes it is possible to reformat the USB drivve for your Mac (it's not just possible, it's recommended) but the bus is still USB. It's an interrupt-driven bus, not designerd for continuous transfers like FireWire.
Last note: get FW800 of your system supports it.

How do I format an external drive with mountain lion?

How do I format an external drive with mountain lion?

Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility
select the external drive in the left pane
partition and format in the right pane

Recover external drive with file salvage

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