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Media Drive erased, need help recovering DVD folders

S

Stirfry2112

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 13, 2009
31
1
Los Angeles
The media drive that I keep all my DVD files on recently somehow erased itself. I never made it back up of this hard drive since I still own all the DVDs that have been ripped onto the drive and assume worst case scenario that I would reimport all the disks if the enevitable happened. Now that it has, I am really regretting this decision as it will take a few days if not a week to reimport all my DVDs.

I've tried using data rescue to recover the files, and it does seem to recover the files; however it does not recognize the .dvdmedia format as a single file. Instead, all it does is recover the individual files of the dvd folder and put them in one large directory, completely breaking any attempts of recovering a single DVD and just giving me a bunch of random files in one folder. This makes recovery completely impossible as far as I can tell. Is there any way to recover these files properly in their original folder structure? The drive is not been reformatted, there are no errors on the drive, the only thing is the drive files were somehow erased. So the data should be easily recoverable but I need to figure out how to recover the directories correctly. Any way to do this?

Thanks!
 
C

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,560
1,671
Redondo Beach, California
Stirfry2112 said:
The media drive that I keep all my DVD files on recently somehow erased itself. I never made it back up of this hard drive since I still own all the DVDs that have been ripped onto the drive and assume worst case scenario that I would reimport all the disks if the enevitable happened. Now that it has, I am really regretting this decision as it will take a few days if not a week to reimport all my DVDs.

I've tried using data rescue to recover the files, and it does seem to recover the files; however it does not recognize the .dvdmedia format as a single file. Instead, all it does is recover the individual files of the dvd folder and put them in one large directory, completely breaking any attempts of recovering a single DVD and just giving me a bunch of random files in one folder. This makes recovery completely impossible as far as I can tell. Is there any way to recover these files properly in their original folder structure? The drive is not been reformatted, there are no errors on the drive, the only thing is the drive files were somehow erased. So the data should be easily recoverable but I need to figure out how to recover the directories correctly. Any way to do this?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

THat is what I'd expect of data recovery software. It will find the files but the directory structure is gone.

You best bet is to re-rip the DVDs. But this time think up some kind of backup system. Time Machine can be your first line backup and then it you have non-replaceble data you need to rotate some other backup copies through some off site location.
 
S

Stirfry2112

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 13, 2009
31
1
Los Angeles
Thanks Chris for the response. So I guess there are no data recovery solutions out there that recover directory structure, they all only recover individual files?
 
phoenixsan

phoenixsan

macrumors 65816
Oct 19, 2012
1,342
2
It is my experience.....

as another poster had said, that recovery programs only recover individual files, not the directory structure as were archived. But I can be proved wrong. So, lining up with previous advice, would be better to re-rip the DVDs and develop a reliable backup strategy. Seems to me the myriad of recovered files is a burden to you and will need a big chunk of time recovering and reordering them.....:(

:):apple:
 
B

benwiggy

macrumors 68020
Jun 15, 2012
2,382
198
Stirfry2112 said:
So I guess there are no data recovery solutions out there that recover directory structure, they all only recover individual files?
Click to expand...
A disk has an "index" of where files are kept on the physical surface of the media. This index also contains the file/folder hierarchy. Moving a file simply changes the filepath in the index.

Deleting a file removes the file's entry from the index, including its filepath. The file's data is still there on the disk to be recovered, but it is marked as free space and can be overwritten.

"If I can recover a deleted file, why can't I recover a deleted index entry?" I hear you ask.
Partly, because the index is so frequently updated that deleted entries are almost immediately overwritten. Partly because it's a bit more complicated than that.
 
S

Stirfry2112

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 13, 2009
31
1
Los Angeles
Huge thanks to everyone for all the great responses, very helpful! I will now be filling my free-time with reimporting all my old DVDs and setting up another backup drive. It seemed so silly to me to backup what is essentially already a backup (putting on hard disk what is already on a physical DVD), but knowing how much time I would have saved, I'm now firmly on the double backup bandwagon!
 
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