I mistakenly began using the Scan Disk as a Mac OS Time Machine backup. Stop the backup midway through setup process. Hoping to recover the original data on the Scan Disk External drive.
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Hi @SteveSherman
You may refer to the below article about the data recovery for flash drive and memory card:
lInk:Learn About USB Flash Drive and Memory Card Data Recovery | SanDisk
Have you opened a Support Case? If not opened, for more information, please contact the SD Technical Support team for best assistance and troubleshooting:
https://kb.sandisk.com/app/ask
In such a case, recovery is quite difficult because your old data may have been overwritten. However, there is still hope. Try some trusted data recovery tools to scan and recover your original data. Such as:
- 4DDiG Mac Data Recovery
- Disk Drill
- Stellar Data Recovery for Mac
- Data Rescue
If you’re unable to recover the data yourself, consider contacting a data recovery professional. They have specialized tools and expertise for recovering data from drives with issues.
@primetester nice infromatin 
Simple deletion removes the file’s link or address in the file system, marking its storage space as “available,” which remains until the operating system overwrites it with new files, making data recovery possible until then. Overwriting destroys the original information and leaves virtually no trace.
In your case, some old files have definitely been overwritten when the Time Machine data was being written, and these overwritten files cannot be recovered using any tools. However, the data that is not overwritten can still be recovered. I suggest downloading data recovery software to a different drive (not the SanDisk external hard drive) and using it to scan the drive to see which files can be recovered.
Also read: 5 Ways to Recover Data from External Hard Drive on Mac
