Recovered Photos & Videos From External HDD w/ Data Rescue NOT Opening/Viewable

[HappyDude20]

I have a external hard drive that I used to rarely use, the last times being back in December 2013 as Time Machine backups back when I had a MacBook Pro. Since, I've gotten rid of my laptop and have only had an iPhone and iPad.

It was during this time I accumulated a ton of photos and videos shot from both iOS devices. I extracted and saved the files on my external hard drive in a folder titled "travel" upon connecting it to a friend's MacBook Pro. This folder titled Travel was next to a folder titled "something.backups" (I only remember the extension right now) (Presumably the Time Machine backup seeing as I could venture into this .backup folder and access my expected OSX folders.

Also, I should note that my external hard drive has always required a password in order for it to show up on a Mac. I'm always prompted to input my password immediately after connecting it via USB. However at one point, the external hard drive stopped prompting for me to put it in my password, or even show up on my desktop or finder. This external hard drive did appear in Disk Utility, however it was a grayed out option.

This led me to purchase Disk Drill & (then) Data Rescue and do a Scan & Recover which took a better part of 7 hours to complete. The latter displayed my "travel" folder with the videos and photos within, however upon attempting to open and view any of these files I receive this (pictured). I feel so close in my attempts to recover this information.

Any and all help is appreciated. Thank you!

The bigger issue is getting this external hard drive to show up somewhere else besides Disk Utility and not grayed out, granting me access to my files... but alas right now i'm settling in just retrieving the media from this folder.

 

[HappyDude20]

Trying the free version of Stellar Pheonix Photo Recovery now..

Is all this moot if my external hard drive required a password in order to see my files?

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote above:
[[ Is all this moot if my external hard drive required a password in order to see my files? ]]

I think you have found the answer.

Herein lies one of the problems with encrypting data.

Yes, it makes it "safer", in that others are going to have a problem "getting to it".

But... it also may create problems for YOU when YOU try to access that data in a "moment of extreme need".

... as you have found out above.

A serious question:
Was there -really- anything on that volume that was so "sensitive" that you had to protect it from others ??

 

[HappyDude20]

OP wrote above:
[[ Is all this moot if my external hard drive required a password in order to see my files? ]]

I think you have found the answer.

Herein lies one of the problems with encrypting data.

Yes, it makes it "safer", in that others are going to have a problem "getting to it".

But... it also may create problems for YOU when YOU try to access that data in a "moment of extreme need".

... as you have found out above.

A serious question:
Was there -really- anything on that volume that was so "sensitive" that you had to protect it from others ??

I would answer your question with a firm yes, albeit rethinking how I go about my security and backing up.

This external hard drive has full time machine backups that contain not only all my logins and finance account info (admittedly tough to get access to), not to mention documents I'd prefer to keep private. If someone got a hold of this external drive it wouldn't be the end of the world, but a sad day indeed considering I had over 70GBs of home photos and videos... Currently only saved on this one external and am currently in the process of either moving everything to the cloud online or going out to Frys and getting a new solid state external drive. Either way, this is happening today.

As for the original issue at hand. I tried all the programs I mentioned and failed to find these encrypted photos and videos. I then went back to disk utility, verified and repaired permissions even though it said all was well. It was then when the grated out external drive name allowed me to double click and was giving the "unlock hard drive" option which let me put my password and then all of my files because available again.

I have all the files I need and currently am at the step of backing everything up so as to make sure this doesn't happen again.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote above:
[[ It was then when the grated out external drive name allowed me to double click and was giving the "unlock hard drive" option which let me put my password and then all of my files because available again. ]]

Good to hear that you got the data back.
A suggestion for the future that might be of use:

Perhaps it would be a good thing to "segregate" your backups. That is to say, those files that are sensitive enough to require encryption should go onto an encrypted drive.

BUT -- things that are less sensitive (I will assume most or all of your photo collection would fall into that category) should go onto a NON-encrypted drive. If you ever again run into "recovery problems" (as this thread documents), this will make "getting to them" MUCH easier.

Alternate approach using 2 drives:
- Use drive #1 for everything, an encrypted backup
but
- On drive #2, leave it non-encrypted and put copies of the non-sensitive stuff for quick-and-easy access....