Help a newbie, syncing a Maxtor One Touch with Macbook...

[troq102413]

I am still learning how to use my Mac and joined this forum to try to get some help. Today I finally had to actually register because I'm having a crisis.

I have a Maxtor One Touch III that has ALL pictures of our kids plus any other important document you can think of.

We had a second hard drive that crashed last year and they are sending me a new one, but I've lost that data. So for now this Maxtor has everything on it with no second back up.

The problem was it was not working with my Mac. So I opened up the Installation CD instructions and it said to go do something in Disk Utility. I know nothing about this so I just followed the directions.

It told me to go to Disk Utility, select the hard drive and click erase. And 2 seconds later it appears my entire hard drive has been erased.

Please someone help me and tell me that all my data is not actually lost!!!

Thank You from a Mac newbie...

 

[simsaladimbamba]

The problem was it was not working with my Mac. So I opened up the Installation CD instructions and it said to go do something in Disk Utility. I know nothing about this so I just followed the directions.

It told me to go to Disk Utility, select the hard drive and click erase. And 2 seconds later it appears my entire hard drive has been erased.

Why would you ERASE a partition? And what instructions were you following?

Anyway, Mac OS X can work with the following file systems, therefore erasing shouldn't have been necessary.

FAT32 (File Allocation Table)

• Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
• Maximum file size: 4GB.
• Maximum volume size: 2TB

NTFS (Windows NT File System)

• Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
• Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
• To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X: Install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free)
• Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx 33USD).
• Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard, but is not advisable, due to instability.
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
• Maximum file size: 16 TB
• Maximum volume size: 256TB

HFS+ (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended)

• Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
• Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner backups of Mac internal hard drive.
• To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
• To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
• Maximum file size: 8EiB
• Maximum volume size: 8EiB

exFAT (FAT64)

• Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
• exFAT partitions created with OS X 10.6.5 are inaccessible from Windows 7
• Not all Windows versions support exFAT. See disadvantages.
• exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
• Maximum file size: 16 EiB
• Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB

If you ever encounter such mounting problems (HDD does not show up on Mac OS X) come here or search via MRoogle, but DO NOT ERASE something, as the word ERASE should have been warning enough.

Please someone help me and tell me that all my data is not actually lost!!!

Your data hasn't been deleted yet, just the structure of where what is.
There is Data Rescue 3, which can recover data from deleted partitions, but may have problems with NTFS or FAT32 formatted volumes.
There is also a newcomer on the field, Disk Drill and they offer the demo for free. Maybe you can give that a go.

Thank You from a Mac newbie...

Helpful Information for Any Mac User by GGJstudios

 

[troq102413]

Thank you. I was following the directions int eh Maxtor manual! I am CLUELESS about computers so I was just following the first part of the instructions.

I'm scared to do anything else myself. Is Disc Drill easy to use?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

I'm scared to do anything else myself. Is Disc Drill easy to use?

It seems that way. Upon first opening you will be presented with a 9-part tutorial, which you can replay as often as you want also via the Help menu item.