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I deleted the time machine backup from external hard drive using finder. Can I get my files back?

I deleted the time machine backup from external hard drive using finder, because I thought I had moved all relevant data over to my new MacBook already. Unfortunately there are some very important personal audio files that I forgot in the data migration process.


The drive has not been written to since then. Theoretically I am sure all the data must still be on there (drive still shows 445 GB data used). The folders have simply been "deleted" so time machine doesn't know what to do with all these unorganised bits on the drive.




When I connect the drive to my MacBook and start the migration assistant, it gets stuck at "looking for other sources". So I suppose the drive is not being recognised as a drive that has a time machine backup stored on it.


I have tried to recover my backup using the easeUS Data recovery Wizard following this guide:

https://www.easeus.com/mac-file-recovery/recover-time-machine-backup.html

By doing this I am able to see many different files, including photos, documents and audio. But unfortunately not the files I am looking for.


The following video shows what the software is able to "find" on my drive:

https://youtu.be/76qxcgywai0


With this software I am able to "recover" those found files and export them to my internal drive, but I think what I really need to do is to recover those files in place, meaning I need them to be recovered in their original location on the external hard drive, not exported to my internal drive. This way (I hope) the disk would be recognised as a time machine backup drive again.


Ideally I would like to get my external drive back to the state that it was in before I deleted this folder.

Since deleting doesn't mean overwriting, I am hopeful that there may be a way to do it.

Any tips on how to proceed from here are greatly appreciated!








MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 12.2

Posted on Sep 25, 2022 1:34 AM

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Posted on Sep 25, 2022 2:17 AM

Then good luck with this issue.


As for too large for Trash - not so.


The Original files are actually still on the Original External Drive but just can not be properly identified.


Spotlight has indexed the External Drive.


Had the files been put to Trash, Spotlight would see them as appearing in Trash when the External Drive was attached to computer.


Though, you probably would not been above to Empty the Trash because they would appear to be in use.

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Question marked as Best reply

Sep 25, 2022 2:17 AM in response to jakubprogramming

Then good luck with this issue.


As for too large for Trash - not so.


The Original files are actually still on the Original External Drive but just can not be properly identified.


Spotlight has indexed the External Drive.


Had the files been put to Trash, Spotlight would see them as appearing in Trash when the External Drive was attached to computer.


Though, you probably would not been above to Empty the Trash because they would appear to be in use.

I deleted the time machine backup from external hard drive using finder. Can I get my files back?

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