Help! Hard drive auto-formatted when connected to Router

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Help! Hard drive auto-formatted when connected to Router

So I tried to connect my movie-packed WD Elements 5TB disk to my Cisco Linksys EA 6700 router to see if i could stream them through the wifi.

When i accessed the disk through the router, ALL my files where gone and it seemed the disk auto formatted and went back to factory defaults.
BUT, when I connected it to my Macbook Pro again, half of the space was still being used and I therefore suspect another partition was created by the router and made the old one inaccessible.

I can NOT loose all my files and movies, so the question is: how do I access the "hidden" partition and save all my files?[IMG]http://i68.tinypic.com/2hdmu0h.png[/IMG]

MacBook Pro with Retina display, iOS 9.2.1

Posted on Jan 20, 2016 7:41 AM

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Answer 1

JimmyCMPIT

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Jan 20, 2016 7:52 AM in response to Masoho

the 6700 should not format your drive unless you instruct it to and warn you regarding the data

http://www.linksys.com/ca/support-article?articleNum=136742

from the image you posted the drive is a 5TB drive and 2.53 GB of it is being used, the other half is empty. Clicking on the drive in the desktop and selecting CMD+i will tell you the format the drive is in and it's use and capacity.

if the full drive is there it's possible you deleted the files some other way and the router (unless you told it to) did not interfere with this device.

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Answer 2

Jan 20, 2016 7:58 AM in response to Masoho

Your drive was not "auto" formatted. You had to tell the formatting page in your router to format the drive, if indeed it has been formatted. And the instructions clearly state to back up your data before doing the format. In any event, the router will only work with NTFS or FAT32 formatted drives so ensure before continuing to format copy off your data.

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Answer 3

Masoho Author

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Jan 20, 2016 7:59 AM in response to JimmyCMPIT

OK but that does not really answer my question.
I have not done anything with the disk besides connecting in to the router and from there accessed it through the link gived in the router settings-page. Neither have i formatted it with my Macbook pro. It took some time accessing in the router setup and I presumed this was because of loading time of all the movies.

The disk is formatted in Tuxera NTSF - could this be a contributing factor?

How do i access this seemingly hidden partition?

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Answer 4

Masoho Author

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Jan 20, 2016 8:00 AM in response to BobTheFisherman

OK, could the router have created another partition? Since half of the disk space is being used to "other"-files? This corresponds to the original space being used before this happened.

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Answer 5

Jan 20, 2016 8:09 AM in response to Masoho

I only see 1 partition on your 5TB Elements hard drive. 2.47TB of "other" data and 2.53TB free space.

OS X: What is "other" space in About This Mac? - Apple Support

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Answer 6

Masoho Author

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Jan 20, 2016 8:08 AM in response to BobTheFisherman

So the answer to this is basically recovery of some sort? I have not under any circumstances accepted a format or creation of new partition. To me this is a complete mystery, especially since the default Western Digital-setup files and so forth, was back just the way they were when i first plugged it in.

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Answer 7

Jan 20, 2016 8:10 AM in response to Masoho

I'm failing to see the mystery sorry. Plug the drive into your computer. Is your data no longer there?

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Answer 8

Csound1

Level 9

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Jan 20, 2016 8:13 AM in response to Masoho

Masoho wrote:

OK, could the router have created another partition? Since half of the disk space is being used to "other"-files? This corresponds to the original space being used before this happened.

No

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Answer 9

Masoho Author

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Jan 20, 2016 8:14 AM in response to BobTheFisherman

Yes, thats what I am saying. The original "first time"-files from WD are there, just as if I plugged in from the factory.

Secondly, half of the disk being used for something I dont know. And it equals to the space used before this happened.

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Answer 10

JimmyCMPIT

Level 7

29,306 points

Jan 20, 2016 8:17 AM in response to Masoho

there's 2.5 GB of data on the drive, it didn't come from the factory with half the storage used up and that amount of storage used.

Open the drive

what do you see?

Data?
Whos?

tuxtera is a 3rd party software for macs to read NTFS drive and write to them. OS X will ONLY read NTFS by default. The NTFS format is not a recommended format for a Mac computer unless you plug that drive into a windows system. If you share over a network it is not necessary and NTFS is not taken advantage of by Mac OS as it is a Windows proprietary format.

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Answer 11

Masoho Author

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Jan 20, 2016 8:21 AM in response to JimmyCMPIT

Well, this is what I see. And the space used is obviously not from the factory. So why on earth did the WD-files come back in the first place and where are all my old files? This is what the disk looks like:

Edit: I also ran a recovery program last night and found all the old folders and movies.

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Answer 12

Masoho Author

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Jan 20, 2016 8:58 AM in response to Masoho

And all of a sudden the movies and files are back.

I entered Tuxera NTSF-setting and ran a repair. When this was done, alle the files were visible again. What caused this - I have no idea.

Thanks for your responses anyways.

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