Lost Partition

[ryankentp]

So I have a MacBook Pro, with a 500 GB hd. I had 3 partitions: Mac Lion (100 GB), Mac Snow Leopard (100 GB), and Data (300 GB). I was running out of space on my Lion partition, and Snow Leopard is just an empty partition, so I decided to delete it and resize my Lion partition. It wouldn't let me delete the Snow Leopard partition, so I just gave up.

I didn't notice any side affects (this was a few days ago), but my laptop battery just died a few hours ago. I didn't think anything of it, but after trying to open iTunes, I realized my 300 GB Data partition is nowhere to be found. When I open disk utility, it shows Mac Lion (100 GB), and disk0s4 (299 GB) then no partition in the last 100 GB or so.

The disk0s4 partition isn't mounted, nor can it be mounted. Is there anything I can do to recover the data that was on my Data partition though? Nothing's been mounted over it, so I'm pretty sure nothing has been able to modify it so far.

Thanks,
Ryan Pendleton

 

[niksimpsons]

So I have a MacBook Pro, with a 500 GB hd. I had 3 partitions: Mac Lion (100 GB), Mac Snow Leopard (100 GB), and Data (300 GB). I was running out of space on my Lion partition, and Snow Leopard is just an empty partition, so I decided to delete it and resize my Lion partition. It wouldn't let me delete the Snow Leopard partition, so I just gave up.

I didn't notice any side affects (this was a few days ago), but my laptop battery just died a few hours ago. I didn't think anything of it, but after trying to open iTunes, I realized my 300 GB Data partition is nowhere to be found. When I open disk utility, it shows Mac Lion (100 GB), and disk0s4 (299 GB) then no partition in the last 100 GB or so.

The disk0s4 partition isn't mounted, nor can it be mounted. Is there anything I can do to recover the data that was on my Data partition though? Nothing's been mounted over it, so I'm pretty sure nothing has been able to modify it so far.

Thanks,
Ryan Pendleton

Most of the times it happens due to failure of disk verification. Disk utility is capable to sort out this issue easily. I would like to share my personal experience here http://drive-recovery-mac.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-if-drive-disappears-from-your-mac.html, hoping that it will help you.

 

[ryankentp]

Most of the times it happens due to failure of disk verification. Disk utility is capable to sort out this issue easily. I would like to share my personal experience here http://drive-recovery-mac.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-if-drive-disappears-from-your-mac.html, hoping that it will help you.

I tried verifying and repairing in Disk Utility, as well as the application mentioned in your post. Neither worked.

I'm not exactly sure how partitioning works, so I may be wrong, but I think what happened is the partition table got messed up when trying to delete the partition, but Mac didn't reload it. That's why I could continue to use the partitions, but they disappeared after a reboot.

If the above is correct, then I think I can recreate the partition table, and get the volumes back with little, if any data loss. I was using gparted, but unfortunately, it was taking longer than I thought it would and I didn't have enough time to let it finish. Does anybody know how long gparted usually takes? By the time I had to stop, it had been running for 2 or 3 hours on the "Searching for File Systems" step.

 

[r0k]

I wish I'd seen your thread before giving up when my wife's Macintosh HD "disappeared". I wiped it and tried to restore from a Time Capsule only to find out that backup was also corrupted. Finally I restored from crashplan and got all her stuff back.

I'm a little suspicious of the "app" recommended by niksimpsons. The page is in awful english and there aren't any references to the "app" on google that I can find, nor can I find it on macupdate. I would give drive genius a try but I am also worried about legitimacy of that other recovery app. Do you have little snitch? I suggest you install and run it so you can determine if any app is trying to connect to the internet without your knowledge.

 

[niksimpsons]

I tried verifying and repairing in Disk Utility, as well as the application mentioned in your post. Neither worked.

I'm not exactly sure how partitioning works, so I may be wrong, but I think what happened is the partition table got messed up when trying to delete the partition, but Mac didn't reload it. That's why I could continue to use the partitions, but they disappeared after a reboot.

If the above is correct, then I think I can recreate the partition table, and get the volumes back with little, if any data loss. I was using gparted, but unfortunately, it was taking longer than I thought it would and I didn't have enough time to let it finish. Does anybody know how long gparted usually takes? By the time I had to stop, it had been running for 2 or 3 hours on the "Searching for File Systems" step.

hmmm.. yes this could work but chance of data loss is very high. I haven't used gparted actually so could say anything but once I used Partition Manager by Stellar. My experience with that was great. I would be happy to know about your experience with gparted once you finished.

 

[ryankentp]

So I tried Data Rescue 3, and Drive Genius 3, and neither of those worked, even deep scans. So I guess i'm stuck with having to redo the partition table. Supposedly, people have fixed their partitions using gparted or something similar, but it will take a long time.

The thing that is bugging me the most, is the fact that I know my data is still on my drive. (at least a majority of it) because I had been accessing files and changing them after the partition table got messed up.

I'll let you guys know what happens with gparted or whatever I end up using in the end.

Update:

So I ended up using something called testdisk. It scanned my hd and found 15 partitions, and rewrote my partition table using them. None of them were the partition I was looking for, but I'm glad to know this tool is there for the future, some people have had success with it.

So I think my next step is going to be guessing the partition map I had before. I know the exact size of each partition I had, so I may use the "parted" utility to search for a partition in the know space, using the rescue tool. So far though, I think I may be hopeless getting my data back.

 

[niksimpsons]

Hey dude,

I got one software for you, also I tested the same at my end. The name of software is Stellar Phoenix Mac data recovery software I would suggest to give it at least one try. I hope it can scan and find your disappeared drive in the same ways as I tested. Till now I tested the software till it scan and find the disappeared drives. Also, I have written all those information here:
http://drive-recovery-mac.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-to-recover-data-from-drive-that.html

I hope this could help you to get your data back.