Data Recovery Forums - Help & Discussions

diligence · Joined: 21 Jan 2010 Posts: 2

So here's what happened. I have a 500GB portable external hard drive formatted in HFS+. I *accidentally* formatted this drive into FAT32 in Ubuntu. I am trying to recover the data that was on this drive.

I have tried using Data Rescue 3 for Mac and have had the following results. First, I should mention that the Mac cannot read the hard drive, and Disk Utility tells me the drive needs to be reformatted. So I'm guessing something is corrupted with the FAT32 format. I used Data Rescue 3's deep scan option and it was miraculously able to see all my files, intact, under "Found Files". It also had some "Reconstructed Files". I recovered everything, BUT the problem is, all the files under "Found Files" were corrupted, even though the file sizes seemed correct and it had its original filename and everything. The stuff under "Reconstructed Files" did not have original filenames but were able to be opened.

Most, if not all, of the files I need are under the "Found Files" option. Is there still a chance of recovering these files? I have one last idea, which is to use Disk Utility to reformat my hard drive as HFS+ and then re-scan it with Data Rescue. But I want to know if I can try anything else first. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

web.data · Joined: 07 Feb 2009 Posts: 24

Hey have you tried Kernel for Mac data recovery software?
If not then try its demo version there's no harm in trying the demo and its free too.
If you are satisfied with the results then go for purchasing it.