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Need help recovering disk

N

nhood01

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 26, 2009
98
0
Hi, i just restarted to install a new version of itunes and the latest security update for snow leopard. Once i restarted, i notice one of my hard drives isn't showing up, and i get this message: (i took a screenshot and attached it) "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" with 3 options... initialize, ignore, and eject.

I hit "initialize" and go to disk utility, but all the options such as restore, verify disk, etc. are grayed out. So... i insert my OSX snow leopard install DVD, and restart holding down "c". It holds at a gray screen for awhile, then the disk just ejects and i start up normally. I really have no idea what to do at this point. Any help would be much appreciated.

-nick
 

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thanks for the response. im running a mac pro 1,1 with 2x 2.66 Dual-Core Intel Xeon with OSX 10.6.2. The HD that isn't showing is an internal WD 750gb caviar black drive that was bought new only about 5 months ago.
 
"thanks for the response. im running a mac pro 1,1 with 2x 2.66 Dual-Core Intel Xeon with OSX 10.6.2. The HD that isn't showing is an internal WD 750gb caviar black drive that was bought new only about 5 months ago."

Don't re-initialize the disk yet.

Take the drive to ANOTHER Mac, hook it up, and see what happens first.

Does the drive mount normally on a DIFFERENT Mac?
Or, same problem?

Here's what you need to make the connection, if you can't do it internally:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119152

If NOTHING will mount the drive without re-intializing, you MIGHT try this approach (which has worked for me, but your mileage may vary):
1. Buy ANOTHER drive which you will "recover to" (no way around this, if you are going to do data recovery you MUST have a "scratch drive" to put recovered files on). DON'T buy any more WD drives - I recommend Seagate.
2. Get ahold of Data Rescue 3
3. Go ahead and re-initialize the drive but DO NOT write anything to it (other than a clean file system). This is done because DR3 probably won't be able to "touch" the drive unless it can be mounted on the desktop.
4. Connect the "scratch drive" and launch DR3. "Aim" it at the problem drive.
5. Let DR3 do its thing. WARNING: it may take hours, or even a day or two, for DR3 to scan and scavenge the files from the problem drive. You have to give it time. In my case, it took three "trys" before I finally got things going the way I wanted.
6. When DR3 is finished, you will have to go through the recovered files and beging to re-arrange them as needed. I found that DR3 could recover files, but hierarchal "folder structure" was in many cases "lost". One of the downsides of file recovery.

It can be a difficult journey to recover files from a bad drive, but it can be done. You may get most of the files back, or nearly all the files back, but don't expect to get 100% of them back. You'll have to spend some $$$ and have patience and be willing to "do some learning" about how the process works. If the first attempt doesn't succeed, try again (I had to).
 
thank you.

...so, if the drive does mount on another computer, where do i go from there?

Also, im surprised to hear you recommend Seagate over WD (even though its a WD that just failed on me). I know true seagates are excellent, but they did buy out Maxtor and give some of their drives Maxtor guts. Its very difficult to distinguish between the real Seagates and the Maxtor Seagates. Do you know which models are true, reliable Seagate HD's?
 
nhood01 said:
thank you.

...so, if the drive does mount on another computer, where do i go from there?

Also, im surprised to hear you recommend Seagate over WD (even though its a WD that just failed on me). I know true seagates are excellent, but they did buy out Maxtor and give some of their drives Maxtor guts. Its very difficult to distinguish between the real Seagates and the Maxtor Seagates. Do you know which models are true, reliable Seagate HD's?
Click to expand...

Have you looked at the S.M.A.R.T. status of the drive in Apple menu>About this mac>More Info (Listed under Serial-ATA). It'll be verified if all's well from a hardware perspective, failed (and highlighted red) if the disk is dying/has died physically
 
Under serial ATA, there shows nothing... Not even the two HD's that I can see mounted on my desktop. What does that mean?
 
nhood01 said:
Under serial ATA, there shows nothing... Not even the two HD's that I can see mounted on my desktop. What does that mean?
Click to expand...

How old's the mac? How about a listing for PATA or IDE (can't remember what they labelled it in OSX, but one of them should be there). No, ignore that, you wouldn't be running Snow Leopard if that was the case. That's just plain weird. Need to think about that.

What model is the Mac? I might have a think about checking the drive connections. Try unplugging the suspect drive and look again in system profiler. Then maybe try replugging it if you get a good result.
 
The difference would be that the drive is connecting through the USB bus and not the internal SATA (obviously). This could be a good way to tell if there is a problem with your SATA controller/ports.

Also, you said you have a Mac Pro. Have you tried the drive in a different bay?
 
I took the drive out of this computer and tried to get it to mount on my G5. I was unsuccessful. I downloaded Disk Warrior and the drive doesn't even show up on any of the settings. Also, in my system profiler under Serial-ATA, it says this "There was an error while scanning for Serial-ATA devices".

I really have no idea what to do at this point. Im beginning to think the data on it is unrecoverable.

Anyone have some suggestions? It would be much appreciated.
 
Does anyone know if my data on this drive can be recovered or not? I had all my music, documents, pictures, etc.
 
nhood01 said:
I took the drive out of this computer and tried to get it to mount on my G5. I was unsuccessful. I downloaded Disk Warrior and the drive doesn't even show up on any of the settings. Also, in my system profiler under Serial-ATA, it says this "There was an error while scanning for Serial-ATA devices".
Click to expand...
I hate to say it, but if your computer is showing drives normally again with that Disk removed and is creating errors on another machine then I suspect it has really had it. There are specialist companies out there that deal with data recovery from dead drives I think. Might be worth hitting the net on that front.
 
"I really have no idea what to do at this point. Im beginning to think the data on it is unrecoverable.
Anyone have some suggestions?"

I offered specific suggestions on what to do in my earlier posting to you in this thread.

You will need to do this (in addition to what I posted above):
1. Buy another hard drive and a means to connect it.
2. Get ahold of DataRescue 3
3. Probably have to re-initialize the problem disk (yes, I understand that there is data already on it. You are doing this to re-create a volume that can be mounted and then "attacked" on the desktop.)
4. Use DataRescue to scan, scavenge and recover files from the problem disk to a second disk
5. Manually rebuild your files from the scavenged data.

If you don't want to do this, you could always send the problem drive to a data recovery outfit. But it's going to cost you at least $1,500-2,000 by the time they're done with it.
 
alright, thanks guys. diskWarrior didn't work, but you think datarescue might be different? ill give it a try.

thanks again for all your help.
 
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