NTFS External drive erased after opened on Mac

[addeman]

Hi,

I have a Buffalo 1TB external hard drive that contained some H.264 video clips shot on Canon 5D, .r3d red material and other video related stuff. It was formatted with NTFS and everything had been written on a PC running Windows Vista.

The other day I opened the drive up on my Mac (with Leopard) and looked at some of the H.264 video clips, they were all in a folder called DCIM. Then i ejected it and connected it via USB to my PC again. Strange things started to happen. The drive ran very slowly but showed all the folders and files, except for the one folder DCIM that contained the H.264 clips that I viewed on the Mac. Then the folder showed for some seconds but disappeared.

After that a folder called .MAC or something showed, but the drive now couldn't read at all and I ejected it. When I plugged it in again it wouldn't show up. Not on my PC or my Mac. It showed up as a "Buffalo USB Mass Storage Device" where you eject on windows but i just wouldn't show as a drive.

I ran some disc utility software and the drive had no partition or anything.

The files on that disc are very important for me so if anyone has experienced something similar please help!

Best Regards,

Adrian

 

[OutThere]

Doubtful that plugging it into the mac would have actually caused a problem, more likely the drive began to fail some time between plugging it into the Mac and plugging it back into the PC. If it's not showing up at all on either computer you may have a pretty big problem...depending on how important the info on the drive is you can try some data retrieval software, or a service that may be able to do it for you.

 

[surflordca]

By any chance did you try a reboot...

 

[madog]

Did you ever improperly eject it from the Windows (Vista) side?

Here is a lovely little problem that can happen in Vista (it is an older bug, but that doesn't instill any convidence in me about using Vista):

In Windows Vista, a USB device may lose data if you right-click the device in Windows Explorer and then click Eject.

This problem occurs if the device uses the NTFS file system.

Even clicking "Eject" is an improper way to eject a device!

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940508

 

[addeman]

thanks for the replies.

I don't remember if I properly ejected it from vista, but it usually do that so probably, yes.

I sent the drive in for service and they couldn't find any mechanical problems with it, but they couldn't find any data on it either!

The strange thing is that a folder called "mac" was created after when i plugged it in on my pc again, and that my DCIM folder where the video clips I watched on my mac disappeared. Then the drive was gone.

My recovery software doesn't show any file system on the disc so can't use that.

Any other suggestions? It was dailies from a music video so I'm sort of desperate!

/adrian

 

[madog]

By default, when accessing a drive/folder that will then be used/viewed later in Windows, you will see the invisible files/folders that Mac OS X places in them. Since the hidden flag is different, those items will appear in Windows typically as a .DSSTORE file, or a .Trash folder.

If it has the "." in front of it then it's just one of those files that Mac OS X placed in there for its own use, and would otherwise be hidden on the Mac side. I have never heard of those files conflicting or causing problems when later seen on Windows. Mainly because they are Mac specific and can not be used outside of it.

You might want to contact DriveSavers.

 

[addeman]

Yes it was folders with "." in front.. What does a company like drivesavers charge for fixing a problem like this?

 

[kainjow]

My recovery software doesn't show any file system on the disc so can't use that.

What recovery software? If you have a Mac program, then no it won't work since NTFS isn't supported by most Mac recovery software. Try getting a PC app instead.

 

[patrick0brien]

Here's an interesting question. When you switched the drive from the Mac to the PC, did you do it by transferring the USB cord from one to the other with the cord still attached to the drive on the other end?

I ask this because I have seen on many occasions the controller board of the external getting fried. For some reason, USB seems susceptible to static absorption (which is why I don't connect my still camera to the computer either). So it is possible, in the act of moving the cord, a charge built up and popped a chip on the external's card.

What this means, however, is that the drive itself is probably just fine, you just need an interface to read it. You would be best to find a reader to test it out. A local PC repair place should have one - either for you to ask them to diagnose for you, or for you to buy.

BTW, I can't say I've ever seen a .mac file, so no idea what that is.

 

[madog]

Yes it was folders with "." in front.. What does a company like drivesavers charge for fixing a problem like this?

DS can be very expensive. Although, depending on how much the data is worth, they can pretty much get anything. I would say a low quote is roughly $1000.