Damaged files after swapping file system SOS!

[user7003R]

greetings, i was researching my problem for about a month and decided to ask reddit, here's the story
few month ago i've decided to downgrade from mojave to high sierra OS, i've backup some of my Logic Pro projects, movies and pictures on a external drive (mac OS formatted) then i reinstalled the os and Sierra wont read the external drive, so i decided to reformat external to Exfat, then i put back files and it works fine, i copied my files from external to mac and then the nightmare began.
ALL of my files was completely corrupter, i can't open anything, i'm confused and don't know what to do, if anyone stucked with same problem and found solution please give me some advice

 

[Fishrrman]

The external drive SHOULD NOT be exFAT.

It should be HFS+ (Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format).

I suggest you:
a. erase the drive to HFS+
b. put the files back on it
c. NOW try copying them to the Mac.

One more step:
When you mount the external drive on the desktop, do this:
a. click on it ONE TIME to select it
b. bring up the "get info" box (command-i)
c. click the lock at the bottom and enter your password
d. put a check into the box "ignore ownership on this volume"
e. close get info
This "gets around" permissions problems.

 

[user7003R]

The external drive SHOULD NOT be exFAT.

It should be HFS+ (Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format).

I suggest you:
a. erase the drive to HFS+
b. put the files back on it
c. NOW try copying them to the Mac.

One more step:
When you mount the external drive on the desktop, do this:
a. click on it ONE TIME to select it
b. bring up the "get info" box (command-i)
c. click the lock at the bottom and enter your password
d. put a check into the box "ignore ownership on this volume"
e. close get info
This "gets around" permissions problems.

will do it asap, but the thing is, if i move files from this drive, they are still corrupter even on my MacBook, all i can do is - Copy files to macbook - format it to HFS+ then put files back, but how they will work if they are already corrupted?

 

[Fishrrman]

IF the files themselves have become corrupted... well... there's probably no way to "fix" them.

Other than get fresh copies from a backup, or... start over.

 

[user7003R]

IF the files themselves have become corrupted... well... there's probably no way to "fix" them.

Other than get fresh copies from a backup, or... start over.

I found that HDD from my old MAC, but i formated this after i copied my stuff to external, is there any point to try time machine to recover something? i'm very noobish when it comes to Time machine stuff

 

[Fishrrman]

If you have a tm backup, by all means try accessing it.
It might have a "good copy" of the files in question.
It may take time to recover and check them all.
But... you have to do... what you have to do.