I was attempting to back up my files on a new drive and mistakenly partitioned and journaled my old hard drive. I'm using a mac and a 1tb Lacie Rugged drive. I sent it to one place in NYC and they've had it for a week. They've been able to recover the jpg's fine and found the .mov files but say that they playback a green screen image in QT and with no sound.

I have a place in Boston called Tech Fusion that says that if they can't recover the files no one can. Does anyone know whats going on here? Why the files are just playing a green screen and what can be done to get back my video? I'm desperate to get these files back..

Thanks for your help.

How much data was on the old hard drive prior to partitioning? After partitioning, how you saved any data on it? If yes, then how much? The more detailed your answer is, the better assistance you may get.

_________________
Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Thanks for your help. Prior to partitioning, the 1tb drive had 700gb or more of footage. What is most crucial is the most recent footage which is apx. 120gb of footage.

Right now the drive is with http://www.techfusion.com/ in Cambridge, MA. They say if they can't do it, no one can. What do you think about that? Thanks again.

Can anyone help me with this? I'm pretty desperate here so far the company that the drive is with has not been able to fix the problem but they are still working. Thanks.

Be more specific about exactly what you did to the drive.

You simply repartitioned it using disk utility? Or something else?

If the former, then assuming you did not do anything to it afterward, it should be pretty recoverable IMO.

_________________
You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

@AustinSteele:
You haven't answered the earlier (vital) question from labtech about what you have done with the drive after mistakenly partitioning it.

I don't work on Macs so I don't know exactly what "journalling" does to that specific filesystem (which I guess is HFS+ on that disk). I think you're also missing a step in your description, where you had to format the volume (after partitioning the disk). Is that correct?

As labtech said - the more info you give (and the more exact it is), the better the chance of you getting replies...

Edited to add:
@drc: snap!

Thanks guys. @Vulcanall I did was Partition and Journal the drive. I have not put anything (or did anything to it for that matter) after I did this. To be honest I'm not really sure what journaling is but I followed instructions to set up a new drive and partitioned and selected the setting "Mac Journaled Extended" and clicked apply. Mistakenly this was applied to my old drive not the new one. It didn't not prompt with any warnings and the change took place immediately.

The company in Boston which claims to be the end all solution for data recovery has had it for a few days and has had no luck but are still trying. The files I am trying to recover are .mov files. The place in NYC said they could recover some files including .jpg's. The .mov's were recovered and the information looked fine, but when played back they only play a green screen with no audio.

Any idea what I can do here or what may be going on? Need any more information?Thanks again.

If you are not satisfied with Techfusions results, we'll be glad to give it a shot. Our prices are also much more favorable.

Check your PM.

_________________
www.datarecoveryne.com

So it sounds like you just used Disk Utility to create (and format, it does this automatically) a new HFS+ partition on the drive.

I would expect that most if not all of your files should be recoverable with no problem... maybe losing a few folder names in the process. The issue with the .mov files being recovered but not playing correctly sounds like it could be a codec problem

_________________
You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Also I agree that harddrivespecialist should be able to handle it for you, if the other places can't (and haven't made it worse)

_________________
You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Ok I will speak with them if I am still having problems. I hope this is true even after to credible places have attempted with no look.

@drc you mentioned it may be a codec problem which is also what the guy in NYC who looked at my drive said. Is this something that could be fixed? Perhaps with some sort of software such as http://www.aeroquartet.com/movierepair/repair.html ??

I agree, this could be a codec problem and the files recovered with success.
If i were you, i would put the recovered .mov files in another disk and attach this disk to a Windows computer.
Then, I would make sure this windows computer has all the necessary codecs installed, like KLite Mega Codec Pack or something else.

On the other hand, I would try and see if any other known-to-be-good .mov files play well on your Mac.

What makes me a little worried is that this case sounds easy, but two pro companies were not able to find a good solution for it. So maybe, not a codec problem, but I would give it a try anyway.

Good Luck.

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

A codec problem isn't something wrong with the files. It would mean that the machine they were trying to play the files on did not have the correct codecs installed to use for playback. Did they give you any of the .mov files, so you could try to play them on your own machine?

_________________
You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.