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Hardware details:
- External HDD: Seagate BarraCuda Pro ST14000DM001
- Docking Station: Unitek USB 3.0 to SATA I/II/III Dual Bay. I've used this before and after this incident with other drives, always successfully
- MacBook Pro: 15-inch, 2017; macOS Catalina version 10.15.2 (I no longer have this specific MacBook in my possession but I do have other Macs available if needed.)
I have been using an HDD (one single exFAT partition) with Ubuntu for a few months, using an external HD docking station. After a few months, I connected this HDD via the docking station to my MacBook Pro.
Upon plugging it in, the drive spun up and immediately sounded very active, and remained so for a while, so I hastily jumped into System Preferences to prevent Spotlight from indexing the drive, suspecting that it would reduce drive activity. It did not seem to make a difference. I ignored the sound and began copying files from my internal MacBook Pro drive to the external HDD. It seemed almost all of the files copied over before the copy stopped due to an IO-related error (unfortunately, I did not record the error). If I recall correctly, the drive automatically ejected, and I was unable to mount it again in macOS.
I unplugged the drive from my MacBook Pro then plugged it back into my desktop running Ubuntu. When I browsed the file system, I noticed that most of my older data (prior to the MacBook Pro usage) was gone. Specifically, directories and files were missing and many other files had file sizes of 0 according to Nautilus and ls. It seemed that macOS was casually deleting data while the drive was plugged in to the MacBook Pro. To be clear, I did not invoke or intend that.
When browsing the disk usage using Disk Usage Analyzer (baobab) in Ubuntu, it shows that disk usage is around ~20%, but when viewing its metadata in Ubuntu's Disk Utility, I see that it's ~80% used (which is what I would expect assuming my files weren't auto-deleted). Despite what Disk Utility shows, the expected files appear to be missing or empty in the file system. When I tried plugging the drive back into the MacBook Pro, it would show up in macOS' Disk Utility, but never succeed in mounting.
Is there a way I can recover the file system?
aakside
Posted 2020-01-10T03:04:45.990
Reputation: 21
Hope this is solved in some way! But one question about this, “I no longer have this in my possession.” So you no longer have the MacBook Pro? – JakeGould – 2020-01-10T03:19:15.283
Spinrite is known to repair such files or file tables from Boot disc – Tony Stewart Sunnyskyguy EE75 – 2020-01-10T03:23:20.750
@JakeGould, correct, but I do have other Macs available if needed. – aakside – 2020-01-10T04:16:56.043
@TonyStewartSunnyskyguyEE75, I'll check out Spinrite. Thanks! – aakside – 2020-01-10T04:20:44.057
+1 The world would be a better place if all questions and descriptions were so clear. Kudos. – Kamil Maciorowski – 2020-01-10T08:45:42.007