I formatted my whole hard drive...

[jlam96]

I'm in a kinda unique situation here. I was installing Windows using Boot Camp, and I formatted my WHOLE hard drive. And I don't have any full backups because Time Machine never worked. I have been careful to not do anything with the hard drive, because I know there are some ways of getting the data back if it's not overwritten. My problem is: How do I do this without installing another OS? I found this software called Stellar Phoenix that looks good:
http://www.stellarinfo.com/mac-data-recovery.htm
But the problem still there: I cannot install this. Could I possible install Mac , or possibly even Windows on an external drive and boot from there? Please help! I would hate to lose all my stuff!

[ElRojito]

Aside from the humor. You could try drive savers. They'll give you a free quote at least. They also work closely with Apple so they don't void warranty by opening your devices etc.
http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com

[Edie Brickell]

Your data can be recovered using this software but you have to connect your drive to another Mac so that you can recover your formatted drive. Stellar Phoenix is actually meant for recovering deleted and formatted drives. Just download this software on another Mac and connect your formatted drive and start recovering your data.

[jlam96]

Originally Posted by ElRojito

Image

Aside from the humor. You could try drive savers. They'll give you a free quote at least. They also work closely with Apple so they don't void warranty by opening your devices etc.
http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com

Haha. I don't think I'll be sending my data to another company anytime soon. If worst comes to worst, I'll just have to start all over again and see what I salvage from my other computers.

Originally Posted by Edie Brickell

Your data can be recovered using this software but you have to connect your drive to another Mac so that you can recover your formatted drive. Stellar Phoenix is actually meant for recovering deleted and formatted drives. Just download this software on another Mac and connect your formatted drive and start recovering your data.

How do I connect my Mac up to another computer? Firstly, I don't have another Mac. But I do have another PC with a FireWire port, if that's what I'm supposed to do.

[orangezorki]

Originally Posted by jlam96

How do I connect my Mac up to another computer? Firstly, I don't have another Mac. But I do have another PC with a FireWire port, if that's what I'm supposed to do.

I did a quick search, and it looks like you can't use a firewire thunderbolt adapter to put the MBA in target disk mode - bummer!

It looks like your best bet is to find a way to sort out a bootable usb drive, boot from that and use recovery software - good luck!

Another possibility, if you have the money and a 2010 or 2011 MBA, is to get an OWC drive for it with the external USB enclosure. You'd still need to find a way to get OSX on to the new drive, but you'd have some extra storage.

Hope this helps,

David

[jlam96]

Originally Posted by orangezorki

I did a quick search, and it looks like you can't use a firewire thunderbolt adapter to put the MBA in target disk mode - bummer!

It looks like your best bet is to find a way to sort out a bootable usb drive, boot from that and use recovery software - good luck!

Another possibility, if you have the money and a 2010 or 2011 MBA, is to get an OWC drive for it with the external USB enclosure. You'd still need to find a way to get OSX on to the new drive, but you'd have some extra storage.

Hope this helps,

David

Thanks. I'm going to try use Windows XP because it's lightweight and small (I only have a 4GB USB stick). As I said before, I'm not really willing to spend any money, so if this fails and there are no more suggestions, I'll just have to do a clean install.

[bogatyr]

Originally Posted by jlam96

Thanks. I'm going to try use Windows XP because it's lightweight and small (I only have a 4GB USB stick). As I said before, I'm not really willing to spend any money, so if this fails and there are no more suggestions, I'll just have to do a clean install.

I don't believe XP will boot off a USB stick. You can however install OSX on an external drive or Linux. Including an SD card.

[jlam96]

Originally Posted by bogatyr

I don't believe XP will boot off a USB stick. You can however install OSX on an external drive or Linux. Including an SD card.

Thanks for the fast reply. I think you're right, whenever it tries to boot off the USB, it says "Remove disks or other media. Press any key to restart." I'm going to try Ubuntu and install Stellar Phoenix, and I'll see how that goes.

[jlam96]

Ubuntu is giving me kernel panic: "Kernel panic - not syncing: timer doesn't work through Interrupt-remapped IO-APIC" Does anyone know what's happening?

[Barche]

Originally Posted by jlam96

Ubuntu is giving me kernel panic: "Kernel panic - not syncing: timer doesn't work through Interrupt-remapped IO-APIC" Does anyone know what's happening?

You need to specify the noapic option, see step 3 here, for instance:
http://maketecheasier.com/install-du...air/2012/08/27

Note that this will only boot ubuntu, so you will need linux software that can recover the mac HD. I have no idea if that exists.

[jlam96]

Originally Posted by Barche

You need to specify the noapic option, see step 3 here, for instance:
http://maketecheasier.com/install-du...air/2012/08/27

Note that this will only boot ubuntu, so you will need linux software that can recover the mac HD. I have no idea if that exists.

Ok, I'll try that now. I'm going to use the free version of Stellar Phoenix for Linux. [EDIT: Seems like that's for Windows. I'm going to give this problem a rest, and maybe in a few days' time I'll fix it.]

[jbzcar]

Originally Posted by orangezorki

I did a quick search, and it looks like you can't use a firewire thunderbolt adapter to put the MBA in target disk mode - bummer!

It looks like your best bet is to find a way to sort out a bootable usb drive, boot from that and use recovery software - good luck!

Another possibility, if you have the money and a 2010 or 2011 MBA, is to get an OWC drive for it with the external USB enclosure. You'd still need to find a way to get OSX on to the new drive, but you'd have some extra storage.

Hope this helps,

David

You can do TDM using Thunderbolt -> Thuderbolt.

[jlam96]

Oh well. In the end, I just reinstalled OSX using Internet Recovery. I'm actually really impressed by this feature. First priority: Backups!

[HarryWarden]

Do you happen to know why didn't Time Machine backups work?