I wanted to format my external hard drive and thinking I had plugged in the new one went ahead an erased the old hard drive by mistake!
What do I do???
Oh, and I am a mac user, if that help....
Thanks all!

bump!

Yikes! Do you have another copy? Or is it only on the one hard drive? What I have heard is DON'T DO ANYTING, and take it to a professional if it is the only copy you have. I think they can still recover stuff if you haven't put anyting new on it.

Off topic: Kerri, why do you have a newer user account? It says you just joined and only have a couple hundred posts.

Hey Jen,

I am sorry to hear that this happened. Unfortunately I don't know of a way to bring those back after a hard drive format. I'll see if I can find something and send your way.

breathe.

try not to cry.

stop and get professional help. you'd be amazed at what can be done. here's some folks that helped a friend of mine.

so sorry and good luck

OK, I'm a lurker, but I know exactly what you need to do. But your emergency warrants my first post. Here it is, step-by-step:

1. Breathe!
2. Unplug the old, accidentally erased hard drive immediately (ETA make sure you do it properly and eject it and then unplug it- don't just yank the cord out in a panic-LOL).
3. Plug in and format the new drive.
4. Download the demo or purchase Data Rescue II by Prosoft Engineering (You can download the demo free, and then use these instructions to purchase if it shows you the files it can recover and it's suitable to you.)
5. Plug in the old drive that you accidentally screwed up and connect it to the computer
6. Do a Scan (have a glass of wine and relax while it does its job) on the old drive you accidentally erased
7. Recover files using the newly formatted drive (the one you originally intended) as the working volume. (Depending on how much it finds, and how it finds it you may have to do some cleaning up after it recovers the files.)

If you need any hand-holding PM me and we can chat online or on the phone.

Running the program may take awhile. The longest step will be recovering the files. Data Rescue has saved my @$$ quite a few times. It has saved me thousands in data recovery fees when drives have gone wonky (before I was backup anal).

Oh, and if you did a low-level format you're probably screwed, but if you just did a quick one, you're probably good. This is worth a try. It does have a last-ditch deleted files Scan in the program, but the other scans might recover it better if you can try them first.

Great first post.

Karma + 1000.

indygirlie,
That is the best first post / avatar I have ever seen!

Welcome!

You are definitely a niiiiiiice person!

Let us know how it goes Jen!

IndyGirl you have saved my LIFE!!!! I am recovering the files now! This little program is a miracle worker I cannot thank you enough for coming out of "lurking status" to help me save my files!!! You rock and are now my new BFF
Thank you to everyone who replied to this, you are all awesome I am not sure what I would have done with out you.....HUGE lesson learned...and I will be spending the rest of the weekend buring all of these images to a DVD

Kari,

Back to your off topic question...I seriously have only posted a couple of hundred times...I read almost everything, but I don't always post.
I was a lurker for a long time before I actually joined. Does it seem like I've been here forever?? I need to meet you sometime--let's do lunch one day soon!


Jen,
It sounds like you have some good options. I hope this is working out for you---losing files is not fun!

Oh, I guess that is says you joined in Feb of 07... I thought it said 08. I guess I thought you posted more than that... you need to post more! You are almost a love cat! YES! Let's do Lunch! (We have been saying that for a year now, hugh? I'll email you and set something up!)
Ok Jen, sorry for the thread hijack. Back to your situation.....

LOL, no worries
I have 1.5 ours left in my recovery time, we will see what happens!!
I have everything crossed!

I'm glad it's working for you! I would honestly pay double for that program. It's a total lifesaver.

It can take awhile and be slow. If you just let it do its magic, it gets almost everything!

This program is AWESOME!!! My files are a total mess right now, but at least I can still open them and view them
Yah, thanks everyone!

Yeah! I am glad you got them back! I hope it doesn't take you too long to get them sorted out!

Yeah, if your drive just gets messed up it can usually recover them with the directories and filing mostly intact. But if you've accidentally deleted something or you have to use one of the more heavy-duty scans that does a block-by-block recovery, it can retrieve it but leave you with a mess. Still better than not having it at all though.

I always use this first if I have something to be recovered and will only send to Ontrack if I think it's a hardware issue from creepy sounds and clonks. No need to spend $1000s for data recovery to be done by software- only if it needs to go in a clean room will I send it off.

WOW! What great instructions. A+++

does data rescue usually recover or retain folders and original file names in your experience?

thanks for the helpful posts..

For the most part yes. However, I think it also depends on what type of scan you do and how screwed your disk is. I have used the program on several disks, and I think that only a few of them have ended up coming back crazy. Like the other scans weren't able to pick anything up so I did a content scan and recovered some things that way. But when you can retrieve something via a quick or thorough scan, it usually keeps all the catalog information.

I want to say that in my experience I've used it to recover about a dozen drives (between me and my friends and family) and I've only had the data be really unorganized maybe once or twice. But at least the information was there to go through. The other times it has recovered the drives fully and in the properly named and organized manner.

I've only had it not been able to recover something once- on an SD card that had a junky block and nothing was able to recover it- not even the Lexar or Sandisk software.

It works better with two glasses.

Backup, backup, backup! I'm loving my Drobo!

-TM

Heh. I have a Drobo too. It's a little slow, but it is so easy. I have had a RAID system before (from Wiebetech) and even it managed to get out of sync and have the drives be screwed up- hence the need to buy Data Rescue. So far, no problems with the Drobo (that I backup with external drives) and Amazon S3 for really important stuff.

I have two sets of drives for it. I swap set 1 and set 2 weekly, and keep one set off-site in case the house is destroyed. I'm pretty sure that more of less covers me.

-TM

Wow, Kristin,
thanks so much for your post. I lost a drive yesterday (Seagate Free Agent Pro - about 2 months old). disk utilities recognized it but did not mount. Sandisk Recovery Pro retrieved files but renamed them generically. (would have been over 50,000 images) [b]Data Rescue[/b] recovered all files and kept original file names, created date, folders etc.

I called Disk Savers at 1:30am and they said it would be $900-$3900. Then I read your post. HUGE thanks!

Glad it could help someone else.

Let's hope no one else needs this advice for a long time. It seems like there have been quite a few failed drives on this board lately- you'd think Mercury is in retrograde or something.

Indy,
I'm bummed we didn't get to meet this past week at the G2G- were you there?
I had the 'failure' of missing files last night and was directed toward this thread.
I was so scared!

My husband was running a disk rescue and noticed, "Hey, you say you were missing the 01_Weddings folder? Is this in inside the 02_Portraits folder?" I was so relieved but quite embarrassed. Turns out I held down the mouse a bit when I was clicking on the folder and dragged it into the one below.

That's what happens when you have the glass of wine BEFORE you lose the files, eh?

Heh. I saw that, but it looked like you had a PC which is not my area of expertise. Glad it was just a careless recoverable mistake. I have done that before too, but I usually just do a search before I start to panic now because I have done what you described enough times before. Often without wine involved.

I wasn't at the G2G. I'm actually a grad student right now and I had classes. For me right now, photography is more of a hobby. I found the forum on a web search when I was looking up something about Lightroom or Aperture or something a long time ago. I had heard Bobbi and Jessica Strickland talk about OSP, but I just lurked because I didn't want to intrude.

My message board personality is much more introverted than my real one.