LaCie external hard drive no longer readable after being connected to a PC

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LaCie external hard drive no longer readable after being connected to a PC

We have a LaCie big disk extreme + 1TB that had been connected to our iMac and I had transferred all of our old family videos on to this drive among other things. Our son needed to back up his files from his PC laptop and so he connected the LaCie drive to his laptop and apparently it immediately started reformatting it. He said that he stopped it right away (???) but now when I reconnected the hard drive to our iMac a warning pops up "Disk insertion The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." and 3 options are given. Initialize Ignore Eject. I chose eject because I don't know what would happen to the files if I chose initialize or ignore. What should I do. I don't want to lose my weeks of video transfers that hopefully are still somewhere in the LaCie drive. Please HELP!

iMac 7,1, Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Jul 21, 2009 6:52 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 21, 2009 2:05 PM in response to K & M

If he stopped right away you may be lucky that only the first blocks have been formatted. It will have probably taken the bit map info (don't know what is called now but when I used to have to try and get info back that what it was).
So options:-
1. Send the drive away to get the info back ( expensive, usually per Mb)
2. Try recovery software that you can buy. Some allow a free download to see what you may get back. Do a Google seach, I have no knowledge of any of them.

It all depends on what "Right away" means on how much data is left.
If you still have the facility to transfer the videos again at least they are not lost for good.
Good Luck

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Answer 2

K & M Author

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Jul 21, 2009 8:51 PM in response to rack0 tack0

The drive was attached to the PC for no more than 45 seconds so hopefully not too much damage was done. Thanks for the tip about the recovery software. I'll check into that.

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Answer 3

den.thed

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91,582 points

Jul 21, 2009 10:10 PM in response to K & M

Hi K & M

I'm not a big windows user so I can't say why it automatically started working over the drive, but reconnect it to your iMac and select "Ignore" if and when the message presents itself.

Then go to *Applications > Utilities and open Disk Utility*, select the External HD's image(s) on the left side list, then note and report back here with the drives info shown at the bottom of the Disk Utility panel.

Caution: do nothing else except check the info for the drive....

As an example, here is the Disk Utility info for an empty 4GB flash Drive:

Disk Description : PNY USB 2.0 FD Media Total Capacity : 3.8 GB (4,127,195,136 Bytes)
Connection Bus : USB Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type : External S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
USB Serial Number : 6E7A040604E3 Partition Map Scheme : Master Boot Record

Mount Point : /Volumes/DTS 4GB Capacity : 3.8 GB (4,127,178,752 Bytes)
Format : MS-DOS (FAT32) Available : 60.9 MB (63,848,448 Bytes)
Owners Enabled : No Used : 3.8 GB (4,054,941,696 Bytes)
Number of Folders : 0 Number of Files : 0

Dennis

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Answer 4

Jul 22, 2009 6:24 AM in response to den.thed

Hi den.thed,
If it is just the directory area of the disk that has been wiped, do you think Disk Utility could rebuild it?

regards

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Answer 5

den.thed

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91,582 points

Jul 22, 2009 4:08 PM in response to rack0 tack0

If it was wiped I don't think so. I was just doing a little fishing to see if we couldn't figure out exactly what the windows box had done/undone?

I totally agree with you, if the drive was wiped then recovery would be the OP's only option.

On the other hand if the data where still present, then there might be a good chance that it's OK and DU could repair it.

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Answer 6

K & M Author

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Oct 19, 2009 5:29 PM in response to den.thed

Hello again,
After I posted this I could not get back to you due to a variety of events and problems. So I had to pack away the LaCie hard drive and today (after many months) I finally took it out again and followed your instructions. Hopefully you haven't lost complete interest in my problem so I'll just send you the info now, and to my untrained eyes it doesn't look all that hopeful.

on left side under 931.5GB LaCie
Disk Description : LaCie Total Capacity : 931.5 GB (1,000,215,674,880 Bytes)
Connection Bus : FireWire Write Status : Read/Write
Connection Type : External S.M.A.R.T. Status : Not Supported
Connection ID : 58629791506893669 Partition Map Scheme : GUID Partition Table
under the 931.5GB LaCie there are 2 sub folders

disk1s1
MountPoint : Not mounted Capacity : 128 MB (134,217,728 Bytes)
Partition Type : Microsoft Reserved Available : -
Owners Enabled : - Used : -
Number of Folders : - Number of Files : -

disk1s2
Mount Point : Not mounted Capacity : 931.4 GB (1,000,079,360,000 Bytes)
Format : MS-DOS (FAT32) Available : -
Owners Enabled : - Used : -
Number of Folders : - Number of Files : -

I'm hoping that maybe you'll have some idea how to repair this drive.
Thank you.

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Answer 7

den.thed

Level 10

91,582 points

Oct 19, 2009 6:44 PM in response to K & M

Hi again K & M

From the looks of it, the drive was erased and reformatted to FAT-32 although the Partition Map Scheme is still set to GUID Partition Table...

I'm not sure what the windows folks were thinking with the auto-format feature, because the Partition Table would also need to be changed to Master Boot Record before the drive would be useable by there junk.

+"Sad, perhaps it's just there way of fouling-up Mac formatted drive's for folks."+

You might try one of the following recovery programs on your own, before taking it to a professional. I've tested Boomerang on both a pocket and flash drive after trashing the file's and was surprised, it even found some old files from the time before. Sense there are no files showing you may be in luck if the data was not written over.

http://www.macintosh-data-recovery.com/
http://www.boomdrs.com/

Good luck, let us know how your doing?

Dennis

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Answer 8

K & M Author

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Oct 23, 2009 6:43 AM in response to den.thed

Hi Dennis,
I took your advice and used Boomerang and downloaded the free option first to see what it would do. Several recovery modules were offered drive/disk or partition or deleted files or RAID...I chose the Drive/Disk recovery modules to scan the drive. I got a list of partitions from 1HFS to 99 HFS and other columns-size/offset/suggested %/files matched. A list of various GB's appear under the Size column so it looks like most of the data is still in the drive. The next step is to select partitions and click continue to build files list. How the heck does one chose the correct partition? How can one zero in on the corrupted directory area? Should I have chosen the Partition recovery module instead? I think I might be out of my league here. I tried to attach a jpg of the Boomerang list but I guess that can't be done it this discussion forum. If I have to recover the whole disk that would be very expensive and then I guess I might take it to a professional service.
Anything that you might be able suggest would be appreciated.
Thanks,
K&M

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Answer 9

K & M Author

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Oct 23, 2009 10:06 AM in response to K & M

You know I just realized that this topic is getting further and further away from Apple so no worries, I'm going to try to post this query in a more appropriate place if I can find one. Thanks for all your help.
K&M

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Answer 10

den.thed

Level 10

91,582 points

Oct 23, 2009 4:29 PM in response to K & M

Your welcome!

Sorry I have no idea what the next step is, but you do need to be very careful not to damage the data any further. My experience was a lot simpler, the data on the drive was only deleted and I think you are on the right track to do some more asking around. Surely others have come to the professional recovery folks with the same or a similar issue.

Dennis

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