Time Capsule question

[mk313]

Not sure if this belongs in here or in the networking section. Mods please move if necessary.

My time capsule backup drive (the internal drive in the 'tall' airport) failed (or at least I think it did. I stopped backing up & I got an error notification that it had an issue - Iforget the actual error message).

I replaced the drive with a new one and it works great now. I have some files on the drive that I'd like to get back if I can, although they are not critical.

I bought an external SATA to USB adapter and plugged the original drive into my Mac. Disk Utility says that it is Uninitialized. and offers me the option of First Aid, Erase & Restore. I tried First Aid & it runs very quickly but doesn't mention that it saw or fixed any issues.

I'm following some instructions from Macworld on recovering data. One step in the process is to try plugging the drive into another Mac (tried, no difference) and then plugging it into a Windows computer to see if the drive is formatted in a format that Mac can't read. If that's not the case, then the drive is corrupted.

I have a friend with a PC that I can try this on, but it seems like the internal drive that came in the Airport Time Capsule should be Mac formatted already.

Can anyone confirm that it is (or isn't)?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer,

 

[Brian33]

but it seems like the internal drive that came in the Airport Time Capsule should be Mac formatted already.

The drive that came in your time capsule will definitely have been formatted as macOS extended journaled (also called HFS plus). A Windows machine will not be able to read it.

I am afraid you are out of luck if disk utility says it is uninitialized. Unless you want to try file recovery software like disk warrior. But that would be an added expense.

 

[mk313]

Thank you for the reply. I appreciate it. That makes my decision easy. The data on there wasn't super important, so I'll consider it gone at this point.

Thanks again!