Data Recovery FAQ

Question:

I have been having issues installing certain .dmg files on my MacBook Pro so i attempted to verify the disk through Disk Utility and apparently part of my disk is corrupt and i need to re-install OS X. Is there any way that i can back up my files and programs before i reinstall Mountain Lion? I really don’t want to lose all of my projects and iTunes music library and such but i’m getting frustrated with these files not installing. I tried using a Western Digital external hard drive but sounds like it is not compatible with my current system.

Answer:

You haven’t mentioned what is essential data to you. How many GB do you have that you need to preserve? You could consider getting a new external drive and simply copying over needed files. Just be certain hdds will work with a Mac up front (due to file system incompatibility). Given the external drive issue which I assume is connected to the drive corruption issue, it’s possible the flash drive would not format on the mac.

Then I would rather to recommend you use Time Machine and if you backup the entire system remember you are also backing up the corruption so you wouldn’t want to restore using the entire backup. Using a Time Machine backup you can restore such things as music, photographs, documents, etc by selection. Or if you have some cd-rw’s or dvd-rw’s you can burn disks with your home folders, backup iTunes using iTunes on separate disks and copy back once the reinstall is done.

Meanwhile, there is another good way to achieve. Creating image of your Mac hard drive and save it in any other (or let it be external drive) using either disk utility or any reputed third party tool called “Drive Clone Mac“. After creating image you are safe enough to reinstall the Mountain Lion easily. After completing the installation just restore that image using the same utility you have used for creating image to get your data back.

Question:

I don’t know how to fix the issue. My Western Digital Essential hard drive has failed. It spins and attempts to boot. The Windows 7 logo appears but then a blue screen with text appears “Bad Pool Caller” is displayed, it then attempts to re-boot. Have opened it up and there is no sign of score marks on the top disc. I can hear the arm moving. Can you tell me a way to repair my external drive or at lease recover all my data, pleazzzz. Also how much do I have to pay if I send it to a local data recovery center?

Answer:

Well, I think you made a big mistake by opening the WD disk, even a tiny peace of DUST can case your drive to fail permanently.

A bad pool caller issue is not related to the hard drive failure but is a windows related issue, simply where data is trying to be accessed from the data pool but is not available or perhaps corrupt. A simple run of chkdsk or a Windows repair would most likely have fixed it. But, what you have done now is ruin your drive and you have no option but to pay for data recovery as putting it back together and trying to run it will damage the surface of the platters and the read and write heads on the armature.

As to data recovery companies and prices, they vary a lot. Just do a search (or more exactly “local search”) in Google and you’ll find plenty of recovery companies and some will not take on the job if you have opened the drive, it makes there job much harder and compromises their work space, which is a very (medically) clean room. But before you send it, see if you can rely on a WD data recovery program to retrieve some data.

Regards!

Question:

Hello, there. I had a hard disk with NTFS file system. Just a moment ago I accidentally formatted it to FAT32, and in the process I lost all my data. I thought changing the file system is fine so I didn’t make a backup beforehand. Is it possible to recover the data once the file system is changed? Please help rescue my data from the foramtted hard disk.

Answer:

Yes, it is still possible for you to recover data from the hard disk. As in file deletion by the operating system, data on a disk are not fully erased during every high-level format (instead of low-level format). Instead, the area on the disk containing the data is merely marked as available, and retains the old data until it is overwritten. If the disk is formatted with a different file system than the one which previously existed on the partition, some data may be overwritten that wouldn’t be if the same file system had been used. However, under some file systems (e.g., NTFS, but not FAT), the file indexes (such as under NTFS) may not be written to the same exact locations.

And in order to retrieve your data, the best way is to use a data recovery software. Install it on your PC or Mac and let it have a free scan thus to recover the found data. Note: due to the nature of data recovery, you might be unable to recover all the lost data.

Caution: Before your data are retrieved, stop using the formatted hard disk. Because saving file(s) to the hard drive from where you are recovering data, for it may result in overwriting of data, and would result in permanent data loss!

Related links:

• Disk formatting in Wikipedia
• Hard disk recovery for Mac
• Recover data from FAT32 based on removable disk
• WD hard disk data recovery
• Restore data from not formatted hard drive

Question:

Recently I am unable to access any of my data on the external hard drive on my Windows 7 based computer, and it seems like the only way my PC will recognize my hard drive is if it formats it because Windows says “the disk drive is not formatted, do you want to format it now?” But I worry that if I really format the external HDD, it will result in erasing all of the data. However, I have very important files on this hard drive and I would like to recover them if possible. Your solution would be greatly appreciated.

Answer:

A couple of things regarding the problem.

If the issue is that the drive is erroring out or severely damaged and unrecognizable by your Windows’s BIOS you have very few options except send it to a recovery center to rescue the data.

If your hard drive is recognized by the BIOS, just not by windows as a formatted drive, therefore you cannot assign a drive letter or read the contents. Get a good data recovery software and attempt to recover from the drive without formatting it first.

If this is not possible, let your computer do a quick format. Note: do not perform a standard long format. This is because in a quick format Windows will go to the table of contents at the beginning of the book (so to speak) and erase the chapter names but (with the appropriate software) you can still turn the pages and see that your ‘book’ is still written there. With a long format, windows will zero-out the drive… replacing the ‘book’s’ entire content with a bunch of zeroes.

If you’re still unable to retrieve the information with a drive letter (quick formatted) and with the data recovery tool – you would need to determine likely causes why this would be the case.

Hope this helps, best regards!

Question:

Please help me out and rescue data from my formatted Mac hard drive. The fact is I was trying to install Windows 7 on my secondary drive on my MacBook. But during the set up it asked me to select a drive to use. It wouldn’t let me select one as it was not formatted for Windows, so I assumed this was my Mac drive and went for the second drive. Now when I try to launch into Mac OS X Lion and it can’t find the Macintosh HD. I guess it’s probably that Windows had formatted the Macintosh partition to MS-DOS (FAT). I know how to reformat it back to a Mac, but I am wondering if there is a way to recover the data stored on that Mac partition? Plz help!!!

Answer:

Well, you just found out the hard way that Windows does not have the capability to recoginze any other operating system including Mac OS X 10.7 Lion your Macbook is now running. That is why the rule always is, that when you create a dual boot system you always have Windows installed FIRST. The Windows installer will instantly over write your current operating system as if it isn’t even present on the computer.

Now the only thing I can recommend to you is to use a data recovery software. For example, you can try Stellar Phoenix Data Recovery (free download Windows version or Mac version). And maybe you’ll have to take the hard disk out and install it as a secondary drive in another PC or Mac and use some kind of data recovery program to see if you can still retrieve it from the magnetic surface. But note: there is no guarantee it will retrieve all your lost data. Because there are too many factors influencing the recovery results, however hope you good luck.

Another thing to remember – it is suggested that you not reformat and install OS X until you retrieve the data, or you probably will lose the chances.

Best regards!