I have a 750GB Western Digital external drive I use on my Mac running Lion. It has nearly 25,000 photos and all my itunes videos and music. I was incredibly stupid and have not backed up in the last year. My daughter was using my Mac to scan photos and upload them to iphoto. This morning my hard drive worked fine when I synced my iPad.
I believe my daughter disconnected the drive without properly ejecting it. When she plugged it back in she got the error that the disk could not be read. She was given the option to eject or initialize. She clicked initialize. She claims she did not click anything else. She says she did not click the reformat, or repair, or anything. She unplugged it several times trying to get it to work before calling me. I told her to close my laptop and do not touch it!!! I left work and went home immediately. When I got there she had the hard drive plugged into my PC!!! She said and error popped up it could not detect the drive on the pc she did not click anything just unplugged it. I plugged it back into the Mac and got the same error she did.
Now for my question. Is there anyway to get that drive back without resorting to forensic data recovery? I do have a Ubunto Computer, and a copy of Spinrite. (I don't know if it works on mac drives). When she clicked initialize did she erase the drive?
If I need data recovery can anyone suggest good software for it? I have taken forensic classes in school and have used forensic tools, but I do not own any commercial tools capable of recovering the data. Id prefer free software but I am willing to drop a few hundred dollars if it saves me sending it to a professional. I am in a hurry to get my data back. I need those photos by the end of the week for a book I was making for sisters 40th birthday!
I am fairly capable so please don't hesitate to post complex solutions if they are my only options.
THANK YOU!
I believe my daughter disconnected the drive without properly ejecting it. When she plugged it back in she got the error that the disk could not be read. She was given the option to eject or initialize. She clicked initialize. She claims she did not click anything else. She says she did not click the reformat, or repair, or anything. She unplugged it several times trying to get it to work before calling me. I told her to close my laptop and do not touch it!!! I left work and went home immediately. When I got there she had the hard drive plugged into my PC!!! She said and error popped up it could not detect the drive on the pc she did not click anything just unplugged it. I plugged it back into the Mac and got the same error she did.
Now for my question. Is there anyway to get that drive back without resorting to forensic data recovery? I do have a Ubunto Computer, and a copy of Spinrite. (I don't know if it works on mac drives). When she clicked initialize did she erase the drive?
If I need data recovery can anyone suggest good software for it? I have taken forensic classes in school and have used forensic tools, but I do not own any commercial tools capable of recovering the data. Id prefer free software but I am willing to drop a few hundred dollars if it saves me sending it to a professional. I am in a hurry to get my data back. I need those photos by the end of the week for a book I was making for sisters 40th birthday!
I am fairly capable so please don't hesitate to post complex solutions if they are my only options.
THANK YOU!