HELP! Mac Users

[Bombadil]

Welp, I screwed the pooch with this one. I bought a new external SSD for my samples and music. I set it up to format to APFS. However, when I went to format it, I accidentally reformatted the current one, thus erasing all the samples, Logic files, iTunes folder, STEAM, and everything else I use to stream.
I just paid for a licence for DISK DRILL but it hasn't done anything worth the money I paid for it. It found 1.2 megs of data, that is unreadable. There were about 640 GBs of stuff on it. Gone. Poof. One second of stupidity and here I am.
What the eff do I do?
Help, please! I'm practically hyperventilating. So much stuff gone.

[gaggle of hermits]

first up: don't panic! I don't have any specific advice as I haven't had to do anything more complicated than pulling a file off Time Machine or Backblaze in recent years.

unless you somehow had the format set to NSA-grade erase, it's probably all there. you just have to avoid doing anything hasty.

reddit has a half-decent data recovery sub where you can ask for advice. they are not fans of disk drill in all honesty.

one that tends to get recommended is ufs explorer, which seems to have a free download so you can see if it will recover anything at all - you pay for a licence when you want to save the files. so that might be a good port of call. raise-dr seems to have the same model and people seem to reckon it's easier to use.

one common suggestion is to bit-level clone the drive if you've got a spare drive and work on the clone just in case (though you obviously want to be careful to clone in the right direction and I'm not sure how the different tools handle a notionally empty drive - was it originally APFS or was it HFS+?)

[Bombadil]

APFS.

[donkey tugger]

was it originally APFS or was it HFS+?)

Actually, when I was trying to help in the off-topic forum (with my back of a postage stamp mac-specific knowledge.. ) I did come across this for Disk Drill and the various file systems and a potential issue;

https://www.cleverfiles.com/help/scanning-faqs/

Not sure if it has any bearing at all, but thought I'd post it just in case!

[Bombadil]

The actual version of UFS explorer is 599€. No chance of that.

[gaggle of hermits]

which version are you looking at? €60 for the standard.

the Rolls-Royce with support for things like Synology raids is the €600. unless you're dealing with what was an encrypted drive. if that's the case, it's perhaps not a surprise disk drill failed.

[Bombadil]

Ok, I've got that. It is scanning now. I'll wait to see what pops out before I put more money down. Funny, I looked for top mac recovery apps, and Disk Drill was at the top. 111€ down the loo.
I don't bother with encryption. It's my desktop full of instrument samples, and Apple Music was pointed at it.
Thanks for your help. I'm a nervous, pissed-off wreck. This is the stupidest thing I've done that I can remember over the last 10 years or so.

[Bombadil]

...........

[Bombadil]

It didn't work. That's 180€ flushed.

[donkey tugger]

Maybe the recovery software companies (or their users if they have forums) could help? e.g.

https://www.cleverfiles.com/contacts.html

Surely worth a try?

[Bombadil]

Thanks. Maybe tomorrow. My nerves are shot.

[Bombadil]

Welp…
I was up all night trying everything with the software. I got nowhere. Upon doing an inventory on what had been lost, almost all of it was out of date and unsupported. The rest I just have to re-download.
I reckon I lost at least 1500€ worth of software. Omnisphere 1, Ethno-World Voices and Instruments 5,Medieval Legends and Forest Kingdom 2. The rest is about 400gb of IK Sampletank stuff I can re-download if I choose. Anyway, I'm writing it off.