Lost hard drive partition?

[vinny]

I've got a iogear triselect 160gb external HD hooked up via firewire to a imac G4 running os10.3.9. Today i ejected the drives to hook the firewire up to my laptop for a file transfer. The #1 partition didn't show up on the desktop. I ejected the drives from the laptop, reconnected to the imac and it wasn't there either! I've got my original tranparancies and the older files backed up on dvd but the last few weeks worth of drum scans are gone.
I've had this HD for a couple years w/o any issues. The other partitions show up. What can i do to recover the partition?

thanks

vinny

[domenico Foschi]

for sure I cannot help you Vinny, but I hope it's nothing serious.

[John Kasaian]

Are you experiencing post-partition depression?

[Colin Graham]

Well, there's always this (http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/), but I hope it doesn't come to that, looks like it could be pricey. It may be worth calling them, they do say they give free consultations. Did iogear tech support have anything useful to say?

[MIke Sherck]

Not a problem, you have backups, right?

Right?

[vinny]

Help!

[Tyler Boley]

run disk warrior on it.
doesn't cost much and you should have it anyway.
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/index.html

saved my life more than once, best disk utility out there, there's what a tech is going to do anyway.

Tyler

[Steven Barall]

Don't panic. It's most likely a software recovery issue and not a hardware issue. This is a good thing because all you need is recovery software which can be had from many places like datadoctor.org for instance but there are many others as well. Check sharewareconnection.com for possible free software downloads. Don't panic and good luck.

[Frank Petronio]

Run the Apple Disk Utility.app first, see if the drive shows up on there. If you can see it then try running the "Repair" function. If that isn't working, shut everything down and let it set for an hour so that if it is a heat related or sporadic problem, the drive can cool down and you can try again.

If you get it mounted back up the latest work ASAP and go out an buy another drive ASAP.

If you want to spend the money on Disk Warrior go ahead, but for the same $ you could probably buy another 160 gb drive, so YMMV.

Always good to have multiple drives. It varies but they are making them cheaper so after three years it is not unusual for a drive to fail. Those five-year HD warranties are a thing of the past (or you pay 2-3X for a superior drive.)

[vinny]

Frank, i ran Disk Utility and the partition icon appears with the others but it's named differently, instead of triselect1, its disk1s1 and none of the first aid or restore function buttons work with it. I'll try customer support when i get a chance.

vinny

[Marko]

Vinny,

If you are having a problem and don't know what it is or what to do, I highly suggest you do the following:

1. Do not panic.

2. Do nothing. If you don't know exactly what you are doing, chances are you'll only compound the damage and make the recovery harder still.

3. Contact someone who knows what they are doing. OnTrack is a reputable outfit and while they are expensive, only you know how valuable your lost data is to you.

4. Realize that a single disk is not a backup, it's trouble waiting to happen. Two disks, one for working storage and one for backup is better, but only three disks give you enough redundancy for your data to be reasonably safe. Disks are cheap, far cheaper than recovery is, as you are finding out right now.

Good luck.

[Ken Lee]

Pardon the question, but have you shut down and restarted the machine ?

Depending on where you live, there might be an Apple Store nearby. You can set up an appointment with someone there. I have also gotten good info over the phone, during non-busy hours, so even if one of the stores is a phone call away, you might find just the help you need.

[vinny]

I spent an hour on the phone with Iogear tech support and it resulted in nothing other than him telling me to hook the hard drive up to a PC and see if the drive shows up there. I am considering data recovery software but i'm reluctant to purchase some after the trial version i used didn't show me the data it said it would.

[Peter Mounier]

Here's something I just came across, maybe it will help...
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
Peter

[gflanslo]

do you have partition magic? it would be able to show all the partitions and test to see if there are any errors on the partition. The data should be recoverable unless the disk is totally fried. This is very unlikely since the other partitions on the disk are working fine. Quick question...is this partition on one disk or is it just part of a disk?

[Joseph O'Neil]

On a PC platform, I've seen partition Magic recover data that was "lost".

Do you know anybody who has a PC or even a linux machine? I've got linux on a couple of machines and sometimes when I have an issue with a thumb drive or external hard drive, going over to another O/S allows me to see and recovever data.

One last point - I have found out form hard luck experience to have data backed up on TWO, not one, external hard drives.

good luck
joe