Hard Drive Not Showing Contents

Discussion in 'Mac Pro' started by xuzhin, Nov 18, 2013.

Most Liked Posts
  1. xuzhin, Nov 18, 2013

    xuzhin macrumors newbie

    Joined:
    Nov 14, 2011
    #1
    So my mac pro is a couple of years old, I put an extra internal hard drive in there a while back, which I also used as a backup for all my important files. now i disconnected and reconnected it the other day before formatting my main drive and installing mavericks on there.

    The drive shows up on finder and under disk utility, but it appears to be empty.

    When I go to disk utility or get info it even says that it has over 8000 files on there and that it is almost full, which it is. But even Terminal says there is nothing on there when I try to ls that folder. A friend of mine gave me stellar phoenix mac data recovery, which shows all my folders in a .Trashes > 501. I connected it to my external drive, told it to recover all my files, it was running all night but seems to have gotten stuck pretty early on, because it is saying it's in the middle of saving an mp3 and i can't click on anything. But all that I have on the external drive I was trying to back everything up on, is an empty Root folder.

    Can somebody give me some advice on getting my files back?

    ----------

    even better after running stellar phoenix mac data recovery, it actually says the disk is now empty. so it basically did delete everything or formatted it to get the files back, this is so frustrating. Especially because apparently it isn't able to recover even a single file.

    help would be really appreciated.
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  2. Fastsavage, Nov 18, 2013

    Fastsavage macrumors member

    Fastsavage

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2011
    Location:
    Christchurch New Zealand
    #2
    Try Disk Utility - First Aid - Repair Permissions
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  3. OS6-OSX, Nov 18, 2013

    OS6-OSX macrumors 6502a

    OS6-OSX

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2004
    Location:
    California
    #3
    share
    + Quote Reply
  4. brand, Nov 18, 2013

    brand macrumors 601

    brand

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2006
    Location:
    127.0.0.1
    #4
    Are we to assume that recovering the data from your data backup is not an option?
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  5. mpantone, Nov 18, 2013

    mpantone macrumors 6502

    Joined:
    Mar 20, 2009
    #5
    When someone asks this question, it is precisely because they do not have a backup.

    Some things never change. Go read the archives from the comp.sys USENET newsgroups from the Nineties. Same stuff.
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  6. xuzhin, Nov 18, 2013

    xuzhin thread starter macrumors newbie

    Joined:
    Nov 14, 2011
    #6
    actually, that drive in question, is my backup, i formatted my main drive and put everything on there.

    @OS6-OSX thanks a lot for the links, diskwarrior sounds promising.

    @Fastsavage, even now where all the files seem to have been deleted? it seriously looks like the software i tried formatted the drive and now fails to get the files back/
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  7. brand, Nov 18, 2013
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2013

    brand macrumors 601

    brand

    Joined:
    Oct 3, 2006
    Location:
    127.0.0.1
    #7
    That is the exact point I was trying to make. He would not be in this situation if he had backed up his data.

    If you only have one copy of your data then it is not your backup and your data is not backed up.
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  8. xuzhin, Nov 18, 2013

    xuzhin thread starter macrumors newbie

    Joined:
    Nov 14, 2011
    #8
    wow you're truly helpful xDDD
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  9. 300DDR, Nov 18, 2013

    300DDR macrumors member

    300DDR

    Joined:
    Jul 5, 2012
    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    #9
    @OS6-OSX thanks a lot for the links, diskwarrior sounds promising.

    Your first step should be cloning the drive before you make things worse ("seriously looks like the software i tried formatted the drive"). And running DW on a failing drive can definitely make things worse. I guess it depends on how important your data is.

    Google and find directions to use DDrescue to clone the drive to an image file. This process will also make the presence of bad sectors known (and let you know how severe the problem is). If it goes smoothly, then diskwarrior may work. If DW doesn't help, Data Rescue 3 will, at the very least, find a bunch of raw files. **You would be running these apps on the IMAGE file ("clone" of your drive), not the ONLY HARD DRIVE WITH YOUR DATA.

    P.S. I'm sure you looked in the trash on your Mac when the drive is connected and it's empty, right? You could also try something like "Invisibles" to show hidden files, in case this is a permissions problem (but since Stellar failed, not that it's good software IMO, the drive likely has bad sectors). Either way, safest approach: clone first, then mess around with the clone and not the original drive.
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
  10. Fastsavage, Nov 19, 2013

    Fastsavage macrumors member

    Fastsavage

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2011
    Location:
    Christchurch New Zealand
    #10
    "501" is the user ID that OS-X allocates to a user.

    I wonder if you changed your user name when you installed Mavericks now it can't find the files properly.

    If you go the "System Preferences/Users & groups. Unlock the preference pane, if it is, Right Click on the current user and go to advanced options check what the USER ID is

    I think you might have a screw up there?
     
    share
    + Quote Reply
(You must log in or sign up to post here.)

Share This Page