Initialized external HD - need to recover data! =(

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Hi guys, I really need some help! D:


So, I have an external HD formatted for my Mac. I recently built a PC and installed Vista on it... foolishly thinking that my external could work with both computers I plugged it into my PC. Of course, I didn't see the disk in My Computer because it wasn't formatted correctly, so I go into the disk management and 'initialize' the disk, and assign an actual letter to it like "F" to get it to show in My Computer.

It then prompts me that I need to reformat the disk to use it - so, naturally, since there's data on it I need, I take it out and immediately plug it back into my Mac to see if it still works after this 'initialization.'

And, no. My Mac immediately says that the disk is 'unreadable' and prompts me to 'initialize' and then 're-format'. There are also options in the disk management utility for verifying and repairing the disk, but when I tried to run those they both failed.

So, my question is, how can I restore my external HD to it's original state (of working with my mac) without losing the data on it?

If that's impossible, and a reformat is inevitable, is there some sort of data recovery tool I can use prior to reformatting that will pull off all the data on the HD?

Thanks so much! =)
 
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Open DISK UTILITY (included with Mac OS X, and located in your Utilities folder, inside your Applications folder) to try to mount the drive. It may be visible in the list on the left-hand side of the window, but not mounted on desktop. The First Aid function of Disk Utility is the one to use--select the external drive in the window, and click on REPAIR DISK.
 

chscag

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To the OP:

When you "initialized" your external HD from the PC, you wiped out all its partition information and the data. See the following article and take special note of the BOLD warning.

Your only hope of getting your data back is by using a data recovery utility. Disk Utility will not work. You may be able to use "Data Rescue II" from ProSoft. However, it's a bit pricey at $99.

Word of caution: Do not mount or use the drive until you're ready to recover the data.

Regards.
 
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i have the exact same problem, just i plug the HD into a PC by accident, and all windows initialized the drive automatically.

I see unformatted drive in disk utility, however, cannot be repaired. I hope there is solution, data rescue 3 couldn't find any files under the drive :(
 

chscag

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If Data Rescue 3 could not find any files, then your data is gone. A simple initialization of a drive is not near as serious as formatting it or overwriting it with other data. If the drive was only initialized the data should still be there and Data Rescue 3 will have no problem recovering it. It sounds like the drive may have been formatted.

Regards.
 

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