how do I format a hard drive for data recovery?
 

Hi,

My intel iMac got written over with a bootable Windows XP. So I hooked up my sister's Powerbook PPC and in target disk mode I'm running File Salvage which is finding hundreds of thousands of files.

Just ordered a G-Tech Quadra 500GB drive from Apple which is supposed to arrive Thursday. For now I'm going to save the File Salvage findings and then import them back to my sister's laptop to move to my new hard drive.

I've never owned an external drive so a few questions. Do I need to format the drive first and if so how? Do I then need to load OSX Tiger onto the new drive? If so how do I do that? Am I using the OSX install on my sister laptop and booting that to my external drive? Or am I putting my intel version of OSX in my iMac and booting that to the external drive? A little confused how this all works.

Can I partition the drive later on since I'll need at least 160GB to store all the files that File Salvage finds from my iMac.

S.

so this is the fall out from your XP install....

I don't see how XP could have killed your Mac.... if you installed it via BootCamp you should have 2 partitions...

either way... when you boot it up in Target Disk mode... what do you see? Is it 2 partitions... one with XP and one with your Mac? Can you actually see your 'apps, lib, system and user' folders?

As for your external HD, plug it in, open DiskUtility, reformat the drive as Mac OS Extended.

I would be REALLY surprised if XP has eaten your Mac.... but it is Windows :) The ideal situation is that you back up your 'Users' folder to your external HD. Do a clean install of OSX to your iMac... and then use Apples Migration Assistant to copy all your files back... it will do all the hard work for you.

If one tries to tweek the partition map in the Windows install, all partitions will be rendered pretty much useless. BootCamp creates 3 partitions in GUID and 4 partitions in a Master Boot Record. The first partition is the EFI partition that allows the dual boot. The Master Boot Record is deliberately adjusted so the 4th partition appears as the first ( C: ) to allow Windows to boot. Any changes to either map will cause the EFI code to fail.

good to know... :D

Would you 'presume' that the Mac side of her data should be intact?... my point is.... If I booted it in Target Disk mode... I would 'expect' to see OSX folders. (apps, lib, system and user)

So.... rather than go through a really protracted process of getting data off her mac and then back on. If she can see the essential folders she may be able to copy them off, do a clean install then Migration Assistant them back on.... She could be back up and running in 45mins...

I am happy to be wrong... just dont want to see her wasting time, money and potentially loosing data in the mean time. :D

It depends on if the Master Boot Record was modified. If anything was changed the Windows installer would have replaced the EFI loader with its own boot loader. Perhaps booting the OS X DVD would allow backing up the Mac partition to another drive and allow restoring it after repartitioning the drive.

Thanks everyone. Bootcamp was not used at all and no drive is shown but the PC one. It's been reformatted to 149GB of free space. It's all gone. The partition was deleted and then NTFS Quick format was written over it all.

File Salvage is showing a lot of files so that's good. How they show up I have no idea.

So do I plug the external drive into my sister's Powerbook then and then do the Mac Extended option with Disk Utility and then do a clean install on my intel Mac and transfer stuff over?

For some reason I though I should boot the intel OSX Tiger disk from my iMac and then put OSX Tiger on there. Hence why I'm asking. This external hard drive thing is confusing for someone who's never had one. Just wanted the basic steps of plugging it and then what?

S.

The whole drive was formatted in NTFS which means a Master Boot Record was created and the directory structure was overwritten with the NTFS structure. Since only a "quick format" was done, most, if not all the files should be recoverable as well as most subdirectories.

Las Vegas,

Thanks, I read on the File Salvage website that is it's written over with NTFS quick then it's possible to recover hence why I'm seeing thousands of files.

You mention:

So what is the best way to proceed? Should I just stick to file recovery via File Salvage?

Photek says to:

So asking the basic questions here I then plug it into my sister's Powerbook G4 and I know I'll see an icon similar to what I see in target disk mode when attaching my iMac for recovering files.

Then I just have to format it as Mac OS Extended and I don't have to install Tiger on it first before transferring my lost files over? Then I transfer my files over and then plug it into my iMac after a clean install (which I know involves the erase option as I tried it before and ejected the disk when it said it would wipe out all data) and use Migration Assistant to move files over?

Anything I'm missing. Just want to make sure I'm doing this right before the drive gets here.

I appreciate all the tips on this and explaining all the technical stuff of how it got written?

S.

Since, as you said, the error did not involve Boot Camp, then the directory has been overwritten. The Mac partition would be too corrupt to recover. File Salvage is a good solution. You might also try, if you have it, DiskWarrior to salvage your files.

Las Vegas,

Thanks, I have Disk Warrior already so I could start it up on my sister's computer and try to find files that way via Target mode like I'm doing with File Salvage? I thought of booting up from Disk Warrior in my corrupt intel but thought it might damage it further so didn't do anything.

S.

I use this to recover files for my users at work. I like it and it gets the job done

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue_info.php

data rescue found all my data, but even though everything seems correct - names, folder structres, icons, even dates and time, no file can be read by any computer - for example no player plays my recovered aif files (im a musician)
nor does logic open a recovered logic song - logic says its a damaged songs but that no fragments could be found- im really dying here right now...because i also tryed all block allocation possibilites - some of the recoverd files where marked red, but some other were NOT-looked totally normal but still would not work---
i also opened a thread called weird data rescue problem- maybe someone has an additional advice for me?

Wait a second... Is this a continuation of this topic here:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=83196

Is this considered a cross-post? Or what?

I now recall that DiskWarrior does have a hidden "Salvage" feature somewhere, instead of using the regular "Repair" function...

In Diskwarrior 3.x and earlier, it was "hidden" in that to get to the feature, you held the Option key down. It's much more prevalent in version 4.x.

Three Dee,

Yes, I guess it is a cross post. I'm talking more about how to use the drive so thought I should repost it.

S.

Las Vegas,

Thanks, but it was mentioned in the other thread that I shouldn't use Disk Warrier in my rewritten over iMac to try and salvage files.

S.

Hello,

Happy New Years to all :)

My external drive arrived today and I'm in the midst of partioning. I put the OSX install disk in my iMac shut it off and rebooted from it so am about to put Tiger on my external drive but want to partition it in three parts first.

Now I notice it won't allow me to put Tiger on the external since it's in Mac OS Extended Format (Journaled) so know I have to go to Disk Utility and reformat it into GUID first and want to do it in three parts.

Also notice my drive is a 500 GB drive and it says in Disk Utility that it is 465.5 GB big and that 108.8 MB have been used and there are 4 folders and 10 files. When I double clicked on the drive it's empty so not sure what they mean exactly. Is is smaller since they reformatted it at the factory.

Do I need to erase the drive first before partitioning in GUID for the 3 parts or can I just partition as it is? Does having more partitions decrease the size of the drive?

S.

It's how the drive size is calculated. The manufacturer reports the drive size in decimal rounded off (usually down) to the nearest GB. The computer calculates the size based on the binary system used by computers where 1KB=1024, 1MB=1024KB and 1GB=1024MB. You can see this demonstrated by getting info on the drive. Apple shows the capacity in both the binary calculation followed by the decimal in parentheses. IE: 465.5GB (499,826,819,072)

Las Vegas,

Thanks for explaining this.

S.

The drives will be in Mac OS Extended when partitioned in GUID. Select the drive by the manufacturer's name (above the volume) in Disk Utility. You'll see that it's reported as GUID partitioning in the bottom area.

Las_Vegas,

Thanks, that's exactly how it shows up too.

S.