HELP! My I broke my External HD

[Dale Cooper]

Hi,
I could really use some advice/help! I accidently pulled the USB connector on my external HD while backing up my macbook, and when I plug it in now, the OS tells me there is an error, that mac os x doesnt recognise the disc and than gives me three options:
Initialise, eject or ignore. Anyway, I can't mount the volume with all my stuff, and disk utility won't let me repair the disk. Is there anything I can do? Any help is very much appreciated!!!!!

(sorry about the title)

 

[Makosuke]

Wow, accidental disconnects don't usually goof up a drive that badly, but it can happen. Your drive is almost certainly physically fine, but you've corrupted the data on it, and it's not a particularly good sign if Disk Utility refuses to fix it.

You have two options, neither free:

A) Buy one of the drive repair programs, and hope it can fix the partition. Examples:

DiskWarrior: http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
TechTool Pro: http://www.micromat.com/

No guarantees, though. Or...

B) Buy a data recovery program.
Example:

Data Rescue II: http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue_info.php

(a much earlier version of this saved my butt once)

This is much more likely to be able to retrieve your data from the drive, and you can test it to see what it can get at before you pay.

One question: Did you reformat the disk after you got it (so it was probably in HFS+ format), or did you use it "as is", in which case it was probably formatted in FAT32? HFS+ (particularly the Journaled option) is much more resistant to this sort of thing, and it might explain why Disk Utility can't help you. Once you get your data off, I'd recommend reformatting it as HFS+ Journaled to be safe. Even if you end up repairing it, a reformat is probably a good idea, just to be sure it's clean.

[Edit, didn't think of this possiblity at first: Final note--if this was JUST a backup disk, and you don't care about the data on it and just want to be able to use the drive, then just reformat it with Disk Utility. But ONLY do that if you don't care about what's on it.]