OS X destroyed my photos!

aleco · 24 Aug 2009 at 14:55

I set up a shared fat32 partition for windows 7 and mac os x to share music, images, etc.

I tried to copy the pictures folder from os x into the pictures folder on the shared partition where all my windows pics were.

Unfortunately, OS X threw up an error of some kind, didn't copy any photos over from OS X, and seems to have corrupted the photos already on there :eek:

I booted into Windows to see if it was the same problem on there, but it booted up a drive check saying files were corrupted and ran some sort of "fix". I'm not sure what as it all was displayed far too quickly for me to read it.

Anyway, end result is the folders on windows with the photos in now appear to be 32kb "files" instead of folders with pics in, and OS X isn't much better either.

Is there anything I can do to get these photos back? Either in Win7 or OS X?

edit: some files are larger than 32kb suggesting the photos might kind of be trapped in what windows thinks is a file? I'd report back on what OS X says but I'm trying a couple of recovery progs (DataRecovery and Stellar Phoenix Photos Recovery) which are taking an age to complete so can't reboot

Caged · 24 Aug 2009 at 14:56

Why the hell are you still using FAT32?

Edit: Ah wait, shared as in Boot Camp not shared as in network.

Are you running the Windows 7 RC or do you have a release version?

aleco · 24 Aug 2009 at 14:59

I'm using the RTM version and BootCamp 3 drivers

Yeah fat32 not through choice, just because of bootcamp ease!

Caged · 24 Aug 2009 at 15:01

Right-click in your photos folder and go to properties, click the previous versions tab and see what's there.

Not sure if that even works on FAT32 to be honest, been on NTFS for nearly 10 years.

aleco · 24 Aug 2009 at 15:03

No previous versions found unfortunately! Can't believe how wrong this went considering it wasn't even overwriting any files! :-/

JonB · 24 Aug 2009 at 15:17

Hopefully HFS+ drivers for windows, included in snow leopard boot camp apparently, will help solve external hard drive sharing issues.

likwid · 24 Aug 2009 at 15:17

Of course now you can restore your files from that back up you have.

Seriously though, if you can I'd remove the drive immediately and connect it to a windows machine as a slave and try some recovery software which I'm sure someone can recommend you.