G5 wont recognize external hard drive?!

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Ok I'm in some deep dookie... my husband is a pro photographer and I accidentally turned off his big hard drive without ejecting it first and now none of our computers will recognize this hard drive. It does turn on, and make all of the normal noises, nothing funky. We tried diskwarrior but it doesn't show up there either. Anyone have any advice? We absolutely can't lose the data, a recent wedding wasn't backed up anywhere else.
Please help if you can... we're scared.

thanks
 

chscag

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It sounds like the drive may have suffered damage when you turned it off before ejecting. It may have been writing to the disk at the time. By damage I don't mean the physical type although that can also happen.

If Disk Warrior could not see the drive, then it must be serious.

By the way, what kind of drive is it and how is it formatted?

All your data is probably still intact on the drive. What I suggest is software that can access the data and remove it from the drive. One of the best at doing that is Data Rescue 3. You might want to download a trial version first to see if it will work before buying it. The cost is $99.
 
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Thanks, I am hoping the data is still intact. The drive is a Macally 1TB. Not sure how it was formatted. When I check 'about this mac>more info> firewire' it says the firewire bus has 'unknown device'
Uuugh.
 

chscag

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OK. What I'm thinking is, it's possible that the drive itself may be able to be accessed when removed from the case. I don't know that for sure but keep it in mind. In the meantime try the software method I mentioned in my last reply.

Let us know.
 

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