Recover deleted files!

HELP please!
I am a stupid person.
10 minutes ago i deleted my "creative" folder (with all my picture, photoshop, layout-stuff). Its around 5gB large.
I could kill myself for doing this s *!

Could you please help me??? Thats the work of a few years!!!

Is there a possibility to redo this action??? Any terminal-hack?

Please guys help me!!! i'm in trouble!!!!!!!

Jonas from germany!

Posted on Nov 7, 2005 12:38 PM

Reply
14 replies

Nov 7, 2005 12:41 PM in response to Jonas Fechner

Hello Jonas,

Stop using that computer at once.

Using a different computer have a look around in Google for...

Data Recovery OS X

There are options - There are restrictions...

If you used " secure empty trash " the files are gone forever.

I suspect you may be in for a shock about the costs involved.

Large Audio of Video files are just about impossible to fully recover.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

Regards

Ian

Nov 7, 2005 1:02 PM in response to Jonas Fechner

Jonas,

This isn't going to help you this time, and I'm sorry for your file loss.

If you want a way to do this without spending lots of $$, invest in a Firewire drive (I have a 300 GB one I bought for just under $300 US), then do regular backups to it. As a bonus, you can clone your entire internal drive to it and use it incase your hard drive fails.

There are no free utilities to do data recovery on HFS+ volumes (the format OS X uses for its disk drives).

Nov 7, 2005 1:26 PM in response to Jonas Fechner

Thanks guys,
I just downloaded these progs.
FileSalvage is Scanning my drive for 15 minutes now. There are 25000 files found up to know and there are 60gb left to be scanned. I've no idea if this will work, but i'm sure there are many of my files listed!
As you say in Germany:
"Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt"

I HOPE this will work! I think i won't be able to live any longer with the fact that I deleted all my important files myself!
Of course: Don't tell me anything about an external drive and backup, i wanted to buy a 250gb firewire these days!....

That.... s **!!!

But of course thank y'all for your responses!

Jonas..... crying!

Nov 7, 2005 9:28 PM in response to Jonas Fechner

Hi Jonas,
Aside from the aforementioned Data Rescue, Cormacolinde once recommended Virtual Labs, "Virtual Labs is not bad, but they charge by the recuperation, and the price is VERY high." Since you indicated that price is no object and thus I assume you don't mind sending the drive off, I thought I would mention it.
--
Gary
~~~~
Fame may be fleeting but obscurity is forever.

Nov 21, 2005 3:39 AM in response to Jonas Fechner

dear jonas,

im in a similar situation as you were: i deleted about 500 photographs!

and was wondering how you did... what worked? what didnt?
im such a beginer at all this mac stuff that im quite inclined to employ someone to do it for me, but its probably best to ask around first, so thats what im doing.

id really apriciate some feed back from you,

all the best

beth

Nov 21, 2005 7:59 PM in response to beth collar

Beth,

First thing(very important)! Stop using your computer all together. The more you use it, the less chance of recovering any files. Best thing to do is to find a friend with a mac and download a trial version of File Salvage onto your friend's computer. Then boot your Mac into Firewire Target Disc mode by holding down the T key. Then connect it to your friend's mac with a firewire cable and run File Salvage(from your friend's computer) and have it scan your computer(which will show up on the other computer as an external drive). File Salvage should give you a detailed report of what files can be recovered. If it finds the files that you deleted, you will then have to pony up the 90 dollars to get the full version. Only the full version can recover the files.

You also might want to try Data Rescue II from Prosoft.


Good luck, and please think about a comprehensive backup solution.


Grant

1.5GHz PB, 15gig 3G iPod, 40gig 4G iPod, Airport Express Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Nov 22, 2005 12:59 AM in response to Grant Greene

hi grant,

yeah, ive not used my computer since that fatefull night!
trouble is that i dont really have a friend good enough to ask so much of their time, but then again you made it sound a lot easyer than i was anticipating...

it was one of those things, i was planning on getting a external HD for christmas, and what happened was the last thing i was expecting! but i bet thats the way it always goes.

have you ever run file salvage to get back image files? or data rescue for that matter.

thanks so much

beth

G4 powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Nov 22, 2005 4:39 AM in response to Jonas Fechner

You know, this is a much bigger issue than people are willing to realize. Backups are good and all, but when you want to recover one or many files quickly, it isn't a viable option. Being able to recover files was not a luxury we had back in the OS 7-9 days. Rather it was something we lost when we moved to OS X. I understand we're using UNIX now, but you would think that Apple would come up with a snazzy solution to this problem. If you accidently trash a folder in OS X or at the command line, you shouldn't be SO out of luck...

Good luck to anyone trying to recover deleted data. This is now a HUGE problem in OS X. More than likely you won't be able to recover it all.

Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3) 1.25 GHz, 1GB RAM

Nov 22, 2005 8:02 AM in response to Omjoy Ganesh

Backups are good and all, but when you want to recover one or many files quickly, it isn't a viable option.


Really? How hard is it to connect an external backup drive and drag the files or folders over? That seems like the easiest option available.

Personally, I haven't lost any files and I don't think I've ever had to resort to a backup. But that doesn't mean I don't have backups. If fact, I've just bought a used G4 Quicksilver and made it into a secure backup server. Now no matter where I am with my powerbook, I can click one button and backup my home folder to my server. Now that may not be an option for most people, but an external hard drive should be. I just picked up an external 250gig for around $150. There are probably better deals out there.

Beth, I have tried File Salvage to see what it might find on my hard drive just out of curiosity. It seemed to work quite well at finding deleted files. But I don't know how well it does at recovering them as I didn't want to pay 90 bucks to find out. You are going to have to find someone with a computer you can use. It is not a good idea to download any software on your computer until you get your files off. You probably could even use a Windows computer to recover the files(requires installing the drive in a PC) ,although I would go for the Mac option first.


Grant

1.5GHz PB, 15gig 3G iPod, 40gig 4G iPod, Airport Express Mac OS X (10.4.3)

Nov 30, 2005 6:19 AM in response to Grant Greene

Look, I don't want to argue over the pros and cons of backups. Obviously backing up your data is always going to be the safest. However, most people don't have a continuous backup system running. Also it's not that it's 'terribly hard' to plug in an external drive, but plugging in a drive to resore a file is always going to be more cumbersome than running a command line (or GUI) tool to simply undelete a file (or folder)...

Powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.3) 1.25 GHz, 1GB RAM

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