Not mine lol

My mate dropped round an external drive thats been used to back up loads of mac files.

Now I'm a dab hand at recovering off win based stuff but have never tried any Apple stuff before.

When I load up the drive on my caddy, should windows be able to see something ???

Acronis can see the partition but tells me it's not recognised or summat.

My mate says it won't even show as plugged in which is what I'm getting too, so to my mind the drive is corrupted.normally in this situation I would format the drive and then run a scan to recover.

However I don't want to balls this one up as it's my mates wife's work stuff on there and as such is quite important.

Should my win software(recover my files) still be able to recover whatever is on there ??

So can anyone give me an idea of mac format's for example FAT, NTFS, I'm guessing it's something totally different, I'm looking to format the drive but to what exactly ???

You're in one of those situations where you're damned if you do and damned if you don't!

Give it back and stay friends lol!

http://www.catacombae.org/hfsx.html

I wouldnt be looking to format the drive when all the data is more than likely perfectly fine and the boot sector/file system probably broken.

I would be looking at plugging the hard drive into a mac and using a mac program to rebuild the boot sector etc of the drive ( i know macs dont have boot sectors as such but im just using it as an example)

Edited 20 May, 201313 yr by Jon_woo

Windows wont see the mac drive as it runs on HFS instead of FAT or NTFS.

Another good program on mac is meant to be this

http://download.cnet.com/MiniTool-Mac-Data-Recovery/3000-2094_4-75337845.html

Mac OS is Unix under the covers so you might want to research that.

If it's really important data just pay someone to get it back. If it's not that important tell him to buy a new drive.

Oh and don't forget to slap him in the face continuously for a good 5 minutes whilst screaming "Backup! Backup!" at him. He can pass the message to his wife who is probably about to get her ass kicked from work for storing data inappropriately.

Thanks for the advice, I've had a little rumage on the interweb, and loks like the best option is going to be using a mac based application to run a recovery scan.

I'm going to slap him today, don't worry about that

Hi David 8

There is program free to use called "HFSExplorer" which will allow you to mount Mac HD on to Win PC. ( Mac HD via USB connected to pc) or external HD 2.5" case sata to usb )

Make sure to read how to. Plese check web and youtube.....

Then you can backup all of files ( not apps).....

hope this will help

zoka

If you do recover the data, then when you're done slapping him about backing up, insert that external hard drive somewhere painful, just to be sure they remember.

If you can't then they'll learn for next time.

Edited 23 May, 201313 yr by cheezemonkhai

First port of call, ALL Macs have a program called "disk utility" that lives in the applications/utilities folder see if that can see the drive and repair it.

Then you have the usual suspects such as Norton etc who produce Mac versions of their disk recovery programs.

Also if they are running a Mac why aren't they running Time Machine to back up all important data?

Edited 27 May, 201313 yr by hertsnminds

Because the time capsules used to go pop and people don't trust it?

Because the time capsules used to go pop and people don't trust it?

Send for 'The Doctor'?

Because the time capsules used to go pop and people don't trust it?

There are many devices that can be used as a Time Machine volume. Even so if you don't want to use TM at least have some form of backup in place.

There are many devices that can be used as a Time Machine volume. Even so if you don't want to use TM at least have some form of backup in place.

Not denying backup is a good thing, however when apple promise you it's safe, then you end up with an expensive brick instead of a backup, then you can understand why some people gave up. Don't forget the external HDD is a backup for a lot of people.

Because the time capsules used to go pop and people don't trust it?

Time machine does not need a time capsule. I backup 2 macs to a standard 2TB USB HDD which Time machine recognises as soon as its plugged in and automatically starts to backup. Perfectly reliable, and I have used it to restore my entire macbook after I upgraded the HDD to a larger one. However it does not backup USB connected drives, for that you'll need something like Superduper.

Disk Warrior is the Mac App to use to recover non working HFS volumes, its the best one out there.

Like I said, I can just see why people lost confidence, not that it doesn't work.