I guess that I have LOST my DATA !! Please HELP !!

[Rashid Alkaabi]

Hello,

I have a western digital hard drive, with 500 GB of capacity, today, I was in a rush which leaded me to disconnect my hardrive from my laptop without ejecting it ! and today, I was surprised that many of my files are displayed in a weird format ! I tried repairing my harddrive using Disk Utility which which was truncating some of my files ! and after all ! I realized that I have lost around 200 GB of my data ! Plus, some of the files shows ZERO KB, and some of them are not !
I'm really in a big trouble if I lost my data, and If so, does that means that I need to get my external hard drive replaced? and is there anyway to recover my files?

Please help!

Thanks in advance,

Rashid

[sjinsjca]

One of the paid utilities that I've seen advertised on the Internet might be able to help you, but if I were you I'd make an appointment with a Genius at the Apple Store if one is near you and see if they have any suggestions.

You have my sincere sympathies!

[old-wiz]

The drive itself is probably fine. If you can't recover the files, re-formatting the drive should at least allow you to use the drive again; you shouldn't need to replace the drive itself.

[felt.]

hello, I'm here to remind you to backup your data. you're welcome

[sjinsjca]

By the way, unless someone here chimes in with an authoritative answer based on real experience, I'd advise not screwing around with the drive any more than you have already, as you're probably just making the problem worse. Seek some expert advice from someone who knows OS X and Unix intimately.

One more suggestion, for the future.

One thing I do to ensure my current work is backed-up is to keep my current work in my Dropbox folder. That way, versioned copies of my work are always available on their website, and current copies are always available on all my other machines (Mac, Windows and Linux), which are also linked to the same Dropbox account. Since I flit between machines all day, that's invaluable.

You get 2GB free and can extend that to yea many more GB by paid subscription or by referral credits. Sign up at https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTQ3NzczNjk ...yes I'll get a bit more storage if you use that link, but it's really worked well for me and has saved me arse on several occasions.

[Rashid Alkaabi]

Thanks for passing by guys, any help from more ?!

[spinnerlys]

If you need the data, that you have lost, then STOP IMMEDIATELY any write processes with that external drive.

Data Rescue 3 will help you recover those lost files, as they are not deleted, unless they are overwritten.

[Fishrrman]

RE:
"If you need the data, that you have lost, then STOP IMMEDIATELY any write processes with that external drive.
Data Rescue 3 will help you recover those lost files, as they are not deleted, unless they are overwritten."

I'll second that.

Data Rescue will succeed when EVERYTHING else fails. This doesn't guarantee success - but your chances will be the best with DR.

IMPORTANT IMPORTANT IMPORTANT

To use DR, you WILL need ANOTHER hard drive onto which DR can save its recovered files. It should probably be as large (or larger than) as your existing external drive.

You'll also need a way to CONNECT the second external drive. I recommend that you NOT buy another external drive. Instead, get a "bare" drive and use one of these to connect it:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?ur...a+dock&x=0&y=0

So you're looking at buying:
1. Data Rescue 3
2. A second bare hard drive
3. A docking station

You'll also have to spend some time sorting the files out after DR recovers them (in many cases, DR can save files but file names and folder hierarchies are lost in the process).

You might be thinking as you read this, "I don't want to spend the money for all that!"

My response: do you REALLY want back the lost data on that drive? Or not?

- John