[Solved] Accidentally deleted second partition on APPLE SSD - how to recover???

[jdm3264]

I was on Windows 10, and using Disk Management, I was trying to delete the partitions on my flash drive for installing Linux on another device, so I deleted the second partition, but what was that second partition of which device you may ask? It just so happened to be the second partition of the APPLE SSD used in the fusion drive setup that is in my macOS setup.

(APPLE SSD as drive 1, a 22.06 GB partition)

Of course, I panicked, thinking that I deleted a core partition of the system, and when I went to reboot and held down ALT, I saw that my whole macOS boot was gone.

I looked for solutions on how to fix this partition, and of course with such a uncommon problem, I came up dry. And I don't even know if this is a HFS or a APFS partition that I deleted (I'm guessing it was a HFS partition before, but since I have the latest version of macOS, it's probably APFS).

I booted into macOS Internet Recovery and from the commands that I've gathered from the internet, something is still there, but I'm not sure how to go about recovering it.

I've also checked with Data Rescue 5 demo, and I can see data there (including a silly little animation I made then uploaded to YT), so this also proves that it's still very intact.

So how do I fix this partition? Is it even doable? Will my data be recoverable?
I really don't want to have to reformat, because I have schoolwork and other important files on this internal drive, and I really don't want to lose all of that to a dumb mistake I made when trying to repartition my flash drive. And school is tomorrow, so this needs to be fixed ASAP. I don't want to do school work on a 23.6 GB free Windows partition...

 

[Fishrrman]

Hope you have a backup.
If you don't, it's time to start learning about the concept.
You've just discovered why you need one.

I can state with assurance that you're almost certainly NOT going to have this ready "for school tomorrow".

You are saying that Data Rescue can see the data on the "lost" partition?
In that case, I would do this:
1. Get an external drive large enough to hold the contents of the Mac partition.
YOU MUST HAVE A SECOND EXTERNAL DRIVE to which to recover the data.
2. Pay the Data Rescue registration fee
3. Let DR "go to work" on the drive.
BE AWARE that with data recovery, prior folder hierarchies and prior file names could be lost. It might take YEARS to get everything back in order.

In the future:
I would not use BootCamp or have a Windows partition on ANY Mac internal drive that holds Mac data that is important to me.
Be careful when you fool around with Linux on a Mac.

 

[jdm3264]

Hope you have a backup.
If you don't, it's time to start learning about the concept.
You've just discovered why you need one.

I can state with assurance that you're almost certainly NOT going to have this ready "for school tomorrow".

You are saying that Data Rescue can see the data on the "lost" partition?
In that case, I would do this:
1. Get an external drive large enough to hold the contents of the Mac partition.
YOU MUST HAVE A SECOND EXTERNAL DRIVE to which to recover the data.
2. Pay the Data Rescue registration fee
3. Let DR "go to work" on the drive.
BE AWARE that with data recovery, prior folder hierarchies and prior file names could be lost. It might take YEARS to get everything back in order.

In the future:
I would not use BootCamp or have a Windows partition on ANY Mac internal drive that holds Mac data that is important to me.
Be careful when you fool around with Linux on a Mac.

And I'm guessing no amount of Terminal (and it's various tools) in Internet Recovery will be able to solve my partition problem?

 

[Fried Chicken]

You'd have to go to a professional data recovery service.

Stop using the computer so nothing gets written over

 

[Luis Ortega]

I was on Windows 10, and using Disk Management, I was trying to delete the partitions on my flash drive for installing Linux on another device, so I deleted the second partition, but what was that second partition of which device you may ask? It just so happened to be the second partition of the APPLE SSD used in the fusion drive setup that is in my macOS setup.

(APPLE SSD as drive 1, a 22.06 GB partition)

Of course, I panicked, thinking that I deleted a core partition of the system, and when I went to reboot and held down ALT, I saw that my whole macOS boot was gone.

I looked for solutions on how to fix this partition, and of course with such a uncommon problem, I came up dry. And I don't even know if this is a HFS or a APFS partition that I deleted (I'm guessing it was a HFS partition before, but since I have the latest version of macOS, it's probably APFS).

I booted into macOS Internet Recovery and from the commands that I've gathered from the internet, something is still there, but I'm not sure how to go about recovering it.

I've also checked with Data Rescue 5 demo, and I can see data there (including a silly little animation I made then uploaded to YT), so this also proves that it's still very intact.

So how do I fix this partition? Is it even doable? Will my data be recoverable?
I really don't want to have to reformat, because I have schoolwork and other important files on this internal drive, and I really don't want to lose all of that to a dumb mistake I made when trying to repartition my flash drive. And school is tomorrow, so this needs to be fixed ASAP. I don't want to do school work on a 23.6 GB free Windows partition...

Can you connect to the computer in target disk mode and get all of your essential files and then just reformat and reinstall?

 

[jdm3264]

I got it fixed now. I followed this post:
askubuntu.com/questions/1065640/recover-macbook-apfs-partition

I surprised not one of you at least tried to think I was able to use Terminal (in Internet Recovery) to some usable degree, but it's alright now. All I had to do was stop feeling powerless and re-map the partition back in it's proper place.

Sure, Windows 10's tools are dangerous, and so are macOS' and Linux/Unix's, but I needed Windows for quite a few things on this iMac (including the fact that it's the only 4K display I own, and for easing my impatience for my new computer), and not having it at all is not one of them.

So, thank you all for helping me, yes, I will consider backups, and have a good day.

 

[Fried Chicken]

I got it fixed now. I followed this post:
askubuntu.com/questions/1065640/recover-macbook-apfs-partition

I surprised not one of you at least tried to think I was able to use Terminal (in Internet Recovery) to some usable degree, but it's alright now. All I had to do was stop feeling powerless and re-map the partition back in it's proper place.

Sure, Windows 10's tools are dangerous, and so are macOS' and Linux/Unix's, but I needed Windows for quite a few things on this iMac (including the fact that it's the only 4K display I own, and for easing my impatience for my new computer), and not having it at all is not one of them.

So, thank you all for helping me, yes, I will consider backups, and have a good day.

Glad things work out!
I didn't know this would work that well