Have I lost my external hard drive data forever?

In article <> ,
Paul Magnussen <> wrote:

> Nelson wrote:
> > On Sun, 1 Nov 2009 21:01:07 -0500, Gary wrote (in article
> > <006a120c$0$23677$>):
> >
> >> A very powerful program, SuperFlexikbleSynchronizer
> >
> > My guess: SuperFlexible somehow got pointed to a blank master
> > directory and did it's dirty work. Now you have a perfect copy of
> > that blank directory.
> >
> > I use FileSynch myself and have been looking around for a
> > replacement because sometimes it seems to scroggle the master.
> > Guess I won't be switching to SuperCalafragillisticExpialodocious
> > anytime soon.
> >
>
> I know this may be a stupid suggestion but: if you haven't emptied
> it, have you tried looking in the Trash? Some backup programs move
> old or deleted files to the Trash.
>
> Just a thought.

And elegantly simple, which is often best.

David wrote:
"Use Data Rescue. It will search the entire drive to locate
identifiable files based on their content.
As long as the MP3 data has not been overwritten, it should
be able to recover most of the files. It probably won't know
what they are called, or where they were located, but as
long as the files contain reasonable ID3 tags, you should be
possible to generate sensible names for them again."

Here's another vote for Data Rescue.

I just had a similar problem with an external drive used to
store mp3 files a few weeks ago. I had about 35gigs of mp3's
residing in a partition on an external (firewire) drive,
when - out of the blue - the partition disappeared.

I couldn't even mount the drive without having the Mac hang.

Even a first attempt (using Data Rescue) failed - UNTIL I
actually re-initialized the entire drive, wiping out all
existing partition information. After doing that, DR was
able to locate and recover the files (although the
pre-exisiting folder hierarchies were lost).

However, I found that by dumping all the [unorganized] mp3
files into a "fresh" iTunes database, iTunes was able to
sort through the "tag info" and re-organize the bulk of my
files! At this point, I could manually "extract" what I
wanted by having iTunes show me the "finder location" of the
files in question.

Some things you must be aware of, and must accept, if you
choose to go this route:
1. You will need to buy another drive at least as big as the
one you have now. No way around this - DR needs another
drive to "recover to".
2. You will need to use a registered copy of DR - the
unregistered shareware copy will only let you recover a
single file (in demo mode).
3. You should probably consider getting some kind of "dock"
or "dongle" to use with the second drive. Don't buy an
enclosed drive, instead get a "bare" SATA drive and either
one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812119152
or, something like one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?ur...a+dock&x=0&y=0

So figure that a data recovery project is probably going to
run you between $200 and $300. Don't want to spend that?
Well, do you REALLY want that data back?

And be prepared for some serious learning and effort, and
also time. But with the proper equipment, and some patience,
you can do it.

- John