How to Recover Data from Drive that Disappeared from Mac – 2

As promised in my last post, I am here with my experiencing with the software. In todays world data recovery is not a big issue for anyone but point here is that how recovery can possible if whole partition (volume) has been deleted accidentally! Most of the softwares I found was asking me the drive where you want to run recovery but in my case situation was bit different.  I have deleted the volume thinking that it is a waste partition and of no use for me but soon I realized that I have copied some financial documents there. But it was too late to realize.  I called my business partner  to inform about the mis happening but she said that she having one software to recover the data from deleted volume and so I tried Stellar Phoenix Mac data recovery software.

The software first do scanning for whole drive for in search of deleted volume and then it listed all volumes in front of me. I have saved the scan in the image form for further use because I got some work (Detail with screen shots of the working of software at: How to Recover Data from Drive that Disappeared from Mac -1.)

After finishing up my tasks just load that image from my mac volume using the screen option “Load Image” present below right corner of the software screen. Now I am at the position where I stopped working.

All the lost volumes are in front of me with the name:

• Lost Volume 1
• Lost Volume 2
• Lost Volume 3

along with some more options are shown as size and file system.

I was bit confused at this point because I was not sure which volume containing my data as the volume listed in front of me are with name “lost volume”.  At this point what going to help me is size and file system information. I rememberer the partition size  and file system was HFS+. So this information helped me in deciding the volume.

Now software is asking to choose scanning methods out of the three present in the software:

1. Quick Recovery:  This is fast option to recover the data. Most efficient to use in in case of volume corruption.
2.  Deleted File recovery: This option is used in case if files have been deleted accidentally from the volume.  It is time taking method to recover data because it scans unused blocks of volume to recover the data.
3. Advanced Recovery: It is most time taking method to recover files. But chances of complete recovery is maximum here. It read each and every sector of the volume to get the data back.

I have used advanced recovery option to recover data for me. Soon after one click it started searching catalog fragment and reading sectors of the volume (screen shot showing info of current sector it is scanning).

After sometime I found the message on the software screen:  “Scan complete”. The software listed all the files and folders in the tree form in front of me.  I can also see the preview of some of the files.

This was just preview not actual files as been recovered yet. After making myself 100% comfortable about the data I pressed “Recover” button present in the rightmost bottom of the screen.

After long heart breaking wait, I found data all of the data that I was dying to get back.  After seeing my financial documents safe and unaffected I really thanked my business partner who have suggested my this magic software. 

How to Recover Data from Drive that Disappeared from Mac - 1

Despite of hundred and hundreds of the features, Mac is known for its unpredictability. Hard drive corruption and volume corruption is very common  in Mac. Though all these issues can be resolved easily (To know how visit: What if Drive disappears From your Mac) but sometimes it these issues are very much complicated that could not be resolved easily.  This post is for those Mac in which drive disappears accidentally and while trying to mount it throws error “Mount Failed”.  The most common fear in this case will be about data so it is better retrive data first. I was not very sure whether data recovery is possible in this case because I was thinking it is not possible to retrieve data until and unless it is known from which volume data is to be retrieved! But I found Mac data recovery software by Stellar promising that it can recover data at any cost. So I decided to give it a try at least once! In the welcome screen I found last option something related to my situation, it saying:

“This method helps you to scan hard drive and other mass storage devices for lost/deleted volumes. It can scan each and every sector of drive to search lost/deleted volume. It can also search volume that fails to mount.”

Now my curiosity was at peak, without loosing a second I clicked on it and the screen in front of
me is asking to select the drive which I 
want to scan it presented the list of
drives in front of me. As I was using
 hard drive “Hitachi HTSS 45032B9SA02”
of 300 GB which software is showing to me.

The screen shot of the screen at which I was landed by the software is soon after clicking “continue” is:

It started scanning sector by sector for the lost drives!  Also describing me what exactly it is doing by presenting sector number it is reading and coloring the part in green where it found any lost, deleted or unmounted volume.  Not only this it also displaying number of drives it found in scanning so far!

It is bit time taking process because software is doing sector by sector scanning. But once it completed it will list all the drives found:

The list of the drive will be shown with the default  name “Lost Volume1”, “Lost Volume2”...
Additionally, it will show the size and file type of the drive.
Not only this screen is also educating me about the scan methods to be used for the doing further scanning for data in these volumes listed above. These methods are:

• Quick Recovery
• Deleted File Recovery
• Advanced Recovery

I was really happy at this point when the software presented the list of volumes in front of me. At this point I am very much assured to get my data back. But for now I have to go for a special piece of family work and so I saved scan for now using “save scan” option present on the screen. I will work on it after finishing my task and then update you...

                                                                                           - Continued in Next Post