Hard Drive Not Recognized

[Geoff Myers]

I just had to force Mac OS X to reboot (it was stalled for good), and when it was done restarting, one of my external 300 GB hard drives was no longer recognized. It had 3 partitions, and I got the warning message in the Finder. Disk Utility doesn't see any partitions and DiskWarrior isn't any help. What should I do to get them back? I can't afford to lose the data on this drive. Thanks a lot in advance!

Update: I did a search on MacUpdate for data recovery apps and here are some that I found. Please tell me if you have had any positive experiences with these programs. Thanks!

1. FileSalvage (link)
2. Data Rescue II (link)
3. Stellar Phoenix (link)
4. VirtualLab Data Recovery (link)
5. Boomerang Data Recovery (link)
6. TechTool Pro (link)

P.S. Nothing is physically wrong with the hard drive.

 

[AlanTheBrit]

Hard drive not recognized

1) Plug the faulty drive into a different port
2) If that doesn't help - try a different cable
3) If you have a second Mac - try the drive with that
4) Try the drive in a different enclosure
5) If no joy with 1) to 4), Data Rescue II is a great choice.