External Disk Folders (some) turned to Unix Executable

Hi everyone. I have an external hard disk which is partitioned into two parts. One is used for TImeMachine (Encrypted Logical Partition) and the other one for storing files (MS-DOS (FAT32).

In the storing section I have dozens of folders containing a lot of photos. What I realized is that some of the folders actually changed to a Unix Executable black icon which practically opens up terminal and does nothing.

These were folders that contained other sub-folders which contained image files. I tried accessing the disk in Windows and I see the same folders as unrecognized files. I am really desperate as I have a lot of photos in those folders.

Further info:

1. The Unix executables (in Mac) show 0 bytes.
2. I recently installed Parallels Desktop. Strangely if I access the disk through there, the folders appear as Excel files?!
3. I already tried Data Rescue 4 and could not retrieve any files so I hope this means that they were not deleted!

Do you know what type of photos these were (Raw, png, tif, jpg, etc.)? If so you may be able to salvage some / all of them. I'd suggest trying it with one file first.
1. Select one of the files and press Command I or choose Get Info from the file menu.
2. In the Name and Extension section set the extension for the file to the appropriate type (jpg, png, tif etc.).
3. In the Open With section choose an application that will open this type graphic file.
4. Try opening the file in the program you have chosen.

Hey Slydude,

I get what you are saying but the thing is, it's the folders that have the issue so I cannot even access them to change extension of the files. For instance I had a folder called "For Sale" and within it, I had dozens of files. The folder now appears as a Unix Executable...

I get it. I'm not sure there is a fix for that. There might be. I need to do some more work.

Hi everyone. I have an external hard disk which is partitioned into two parts. One is used for TImeMachine (Encrypted Logical Partition) and the other one for storing files (MS-DOS (FAT32).

Click to expand...

Try removing the encryption from the hard drive (Time Machine partition) first and then see if you can read those files in the FAT-32 partition. By the way, it's never a good idea to use FAT-32 to store valuable files since FAT is a non journaling file system. Which means it's prone to errors. Also, if those folders are showing up as zero bytes, it does not necessarily mean the files within the folder are gone. It just means the folder is taking up zero bytes of space. You may be able to extract the data with a hex editor. There are lots of free hex editors for Windows.

Did anyone find a solution to this problem?

I don't have a fix, but you should read this (files/folders showing up as unix executable means their metadata has been lost):
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1762250&seqNum=5

I should also mention in addition to member gsahli's recommendation about the metadata being lost, that you probably can extract data from those folders using a hex editor. Sometimes, even a text editor will work if it can open the folder.