I just got my new MBP today and had some files i wanted to move from my external hdd to my new laptop. I was running windows 7 on my desktop that the external hdd was plugged into. When i plugged it into my mac i couldnt see any of the files so i plugged it back into my desktop only to find out my desktop couldnt discover it. After doing a little research on the web i came to believe that by plugging it into my mac it got reformatted. I had ALOT of important info on my hdd and i was wondering if there was any way i could recover it.
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External HDD Got erased
- Thread starter chingy51o
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Simply plugging a hard drive (or Flash drive) into a Mac cannot possibly erase it. At worst the Mac OS will display an error window saying it doesn't recognise the drive format and ask if YOU want to erase it, where you can then just "eject" it again.
Presumably you ejected the hard drive from Windows and Mac OS or shutdown Windows and Mac OS X before simply unplugging the drive?? If not, then you may have corrupted the data structure and will need some sort of hard drive repair utility to try to rescue the data.
You may want to try re-booting Windows first though to see if it's just being its usual uppity self. It might recognise the drive properly again if you shutdown Windows, plug in the drive and then restart Windows.
If you do get the data back, then there are some drive formats that the Mac OS can't read, so you may have to reformat the drive (after copying everything off of it!) using a different format to be able to transfer the files.
Presumably you ejected the hard drive from Windows and Mac OS or shutdown Windows and Mac OS X before simply unplugging the drive?? If not, then you may have corrupted the data structure and will need some sort of hard drive repair utility to try to rescue the data.
You may want to try re-booting Windows first though to see if it's just being its usual uppity self. It might recognise the drive properly again if you shutdown Windows, plug in the drive and then restart Windows.
If you do get the data back, then there are some drive formats that the Mac OS can't read, so you may have to reformat the drive (after copying everything off of it!) using a different format to be able to transfer the files.
Eric S.
macrumors 68040
well itsa weird because once i plugged the hdd into my mac it named the drive time machine backup and it began backing up my mac as a file onto the hdd. once that happened i could no longer access my old files.
yeah it DEFINITELY didnt say anythign about reformatting it. I know a lot about computers and that wouldnt have got past me. So basically all i can do is use a backup utility at this point?
gr8tfly
macrumors 603
Time Machine Prompt for Erase
Ok, I thought this important enough to check out for myself. For the OP, know I'm not trying to argue the point or "rub it in" that you might have "clicked through", I just wanted to post the fact there is a warning before erasing any drive - so others won't be worried about accidentally erasing a drive.
Anyway, the upshot is OS-X definitely prompts the user prior to erasing the drive. I setup the same scenario as you had, i.e. a Windows (FAT32 in this case) partition and an install of OS-X which hadn't previously used Time Machine.
The first thing it prompts is "Do you want to use "BIG FAT" to back up with Time Machine?" (sorry 'bout the name - it's FAT32 and it's big 😉.
Next, upon clicking "Use as Backup Disk", it will enter Time Machine Preferences with the following warning: "Are you sure you want to erase the backup disk "BIG FAT"? Erasing will destroy all information on the disk and can't be undone." The default button is "Don't Erase".
I wish I had an explanation for what happened in your case. I can certainly understand the painful situation and hope you can get your data recovered easily.
(attached🙂
Ok, I thought this important enough to check out for myself. For the OP, know I'm not trying to argue the point or "rub it in" that you might have "clicked through", I just wanted to post the fact there is a warning before erasing any drive - so others won't be worried about accidentally erasing a drive.
Anyway, the upshot is OS-X definitely prompts the user prior to erasing the drive. I setup the same scenario as you had, i.e. a Windows (FAT32 in this case) partition and an install of OS-X which hadn't previously used Time Machine.
The first thing it prompts is "Do you want to use "BIG FAT" to back up with Time Machine?" (sorry 'bout the name - it's FAT32 and it's big 😉.
Next, upon clicking "Use as Backup Disk", it will enter Time Machine Preferences with the following warning: "Are you sure you want to erase the backup disk "BIG FAT"? Erasing will destroy all information on the disk and can't be undone." The default button is "Don't Erase".
I wish I had an explanation for what happened in your case. I can certainly understand the painful situation and hope you can get your data recovered easily.
(attached🙂
