Major problems with WD Hard-drive partitioning

I need some big help - I have recently bought a 1TB WD Hard-drive - on installing it I was asked to partition the hard-drive so it could be used in it's FAT32 format.

I had made sure that my other hard-drive (a 500GB Lacie) was un-plugged and all files backed up on it. With the new WD hard-drive partitioned I then tried to open up the Lacie 500GB but it read as a 1TB hard-drive and no files were on it! I am not seeing any files because my Macbook has been formatted to now read FAT33 format files? If that's the case how can I revert back to the original NTFS format so I can read my files again - or are they all deleted and will I need to buy some file retrieval software? I'm super confused by this one - I was only buying another hard-drive to be diligent and now I've lost (or it seems like I have) all my files

Help please! Anybody!

I'm afraid you have us confused as well.....

The WD drive was partitioned. Why? You stated upon installing it you were asked to partition it? What asked you to partition it? It wasn't the operating system because it can nicely read the drive whether or not it is partitioned.

If the WD was formatted as NTFS, (probably) your Mac can read it but not write to it. Reformatting it to FAT-32 would allow your Mac to read and write to it.

If you removed the LaCie before doing any partitioning or formatting, then all your data should still be on the drive. Unless by coincidence the drive failed.

Hi,

Thanks for getting back to me - in the last few hours my flatmate and I have made a bit of progress on this. It was my mistake, I thought my Lacie was a 500GB it's actually a 1TB (so ignore that earlier point) - the big issue we're having is restoring the original files that were present in the HFS+ format from the new FAT format on the Lacie Hard-Drive. Since installing the new WD 1 TB hard drive my Lacie hasn't been able to access these files directly (wiping the hard-drive clean)

We have been using both Test Disk and PhotoRec and have been able to identify the deleted files but can't work out how to restore them from their deleted state.

PhotoRec seems happy to restore but not to the original external drive - I'm loathe to try using another one of my external drives to save these files to, there's not enough space on the mac (the reason I had an external drive) - just at a loss on how to proceed and really need to get these files back - if it gets to it can look at buying software but not so keen given the big prices for this - so your help would be incredible

Can you recommend any freeware which has a simpler user interface than Linux?

Is there any worth in using Time Machine (it was last backed up on the 10th Feb - but to the Lacie Hard Drive that's now been wiped)

Unfortunately, effective data recovery programs are not inexpensive and, as far as I'm aware, there are none that are free which work well. All data recovery programs require that the undeleted files be saved off to a location other than the one they were undeleted from.

Data Rescue 3

thanks for replying

hi there,

We've been using the software QuickScan (as a Deep Dive into deleted files) and from current progress it looks to be tracking videos, music, pictures and documents - with each category increasing in size - so looking positive. It may just mean I'll have to take the £££ hit on retrieving the files once the scan is completed and buy another hard-drive to copy them to - a costly lesson but one I won't forget!

Thanks again,
Nick

maybe this could help.
1GB free mac data recovery software from Free Mac Data Recovery Software - MiniTool Mac Data Recovery is professional and free Mac OS data recovery software. MiniTool Mac Data Recovery support all kinds of Mac OS to recover data from HFS, HFS+ Mac Volumes.

HI there - I used DeskDrill Pro - which has got all my files back (took 18hrs - I had 890GB of data!) and then am now using StellarPhoenix to recover all my files as there were some re-formatting issues - this has taken nearly 5 days now but is nearly completion - a big lesson in file storage anyway!