How can I recover data on Mac formatted external hard drive that was plugged into windows XP?

Question

I have a external hard drive that was formatted for Mac. I was running windows XP so i was using MacDrive to use the HD. i plugged the HD into another computer that didn't have MacDrive. Now when i try to use the HD with my MacDrive installed computer, it tells me i need to modify Mac partitions which will result in lose of data. And of course windows without MacDrive doesn't recognize the HD when plugged in. Is all the data lost?

Answer 1

Exactly the same thing happened to me. I was using an older version of MacDrive and I used the drive on a PC without MacDrive (I had taken it form home to work and forgotten that I didn't have it installed at work) and even though I didn't do anything but unplug it when I realised, neither my Mac or PC with MacDrive would work with it.

I tried lots of different things, but finally found that Disk Warrior

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/index....

did the trick.  

This was a couple of years ago, but I do remember that I had to run it a few times and it was really slow, so don't give up.

I got ALL my files back in the end but I think it was all very hit and miss, and I was very lucky!

Good luck

Ross

Answer 2

Yes the data is lost.  Odds are it can be found again though, with a data recovery program.  So long as the windows machine did NOT format the drive using a software program (a quick search found Kernal a data recovery program for Macs, an in depth search will probably find more options).  If the drive was formatted then the software is less likely to work and you might need a "forensic" drive recovery.  The big name in that field is "Ontrack".  There are tons of others.  In general their pricing starts out very open ended - from a hundred dollars, ranging up to around $10,000. most will give you a quote either for free or for a modest amount.