External NTFS HDD unreadable after connection to freenas server

[freezey_45]

Hi all,

I recently turned an old pc into a basic freenas server (socket775 dual core pentium, 6gb ram, 3x 500gb hdd). After the initial setup and after getting plex and network transfers working, I connected a 2tb external seagate HDD. I didn't get time to do anything else with the drive, just shut down the server a bit later.

Move forward 1 week and i've tried to connect the HDD to my Mac as always and now I am greeted with a unable to read the drive, (http://imgur.com/FJFot8U ) and When i got into the disk management software it show a 1.98gb partition and the small freeBDS Swap partition. ( http://imgur.com/ElEQtow ).

This drive has some important photos on here and must not be formatted...

Please help......

 

[anodos]

Hi all,

I recently turned an old pc into a basic freenas server (socket775 dual core pentium, 6gb ram, 3x 500gb hdd). After the initial setup and after getting plex and network transfers working, I connected a 2tb external seagate HDD. I didn't get time to do anything else with the drive, just shut down the server a bit later.

Move forward 1 week and i've tried to connect the HDD to my Mac as always and now I am greeted with a unable to read the drive, (http://imgur.com/FJFot8U ) and When i got into the disk management software it show a 1.98gb partition and the small freeBDS Swap partition. ( http://imgur.com/ElEQtow ).

This drive has some important photos on here and must not be formatted...

Please help......

I'm sorry to hear this.

Did you hit any webgui buttons after connecting the drive to the server? Try to recall as much detail as possible.

Your first priority should be to figure out what happened, and the current status of your drive.

Start by thinking hard about what might have happened and writing it down. I'm not in a position right now to give much help (mobile phone, no coffee yet, etc.)

Based on what you're describing, it sounds like you may have inadvertently formatted the drive.

Hold off on any actual recovery steps.

Depending on what has happened and the importance of the data, at some point you may have to send the drive to pros to recover the data. You don't want to do anything that will make their job harder.

 

[freezey_45]

Hi thanks for the reply, :)
No webgui buttons we pressed. After some google-foo last night I was able to find out that the partition map of the drive has been changed. I found software called R-Studio. It is currently reading the raw data on the drive and it seems like it will reconstruct the partition map.

Unfortunately being a larger drive 2tb. It is saying it will take 14hrs to scan. So far there is only 5hrs to go. I will update the post when it is done.

Thanks

 

[anodos]

Hi thanks for the reply, :)
No webgui buttons we pressed. After some google-foo last night I was able to find out that the partition map of the drive has been changed. I found software called R-Studio. It is currently reading the raw data on the drive and it seems like it will reconstruct the partition map.

Unfortunately being a larger drive 2tb. It is saying it will take 14hrs to scan. So far there is only 5hrs to go. I will update the post when it is done.

Thanks

Typically, it's a good idea to use a tool such as ddrescue to image the HDD in question before performing recovery operations. Always leave yourself access to the HDD's state prior to recovery attempt.