How to undo "rm -rf" ? :-(

Question

Level 1

0 points

How to undo "rm -rf" ? :-(

Folk, this is not necesarily a Snow Leopard issue, but nevertheless, any help is appreciated. I accidentally deleted stuff from my HD on the console using "rm -rf *" and even went ahead to re-istall snow leopard before i realized what i had got myself into 😟

Nothing was backed up.

Are there any recovery tools for Snow Leopard or otherwise to recover this deleted data on my Mac?

Macbook, Mac OS X (10.6.1), Black, 160GB, 3GB-RAM, 2.16GHz

Posted on Sep 22, 2009 3:09 AM

Reply

Answer 1

dbsneddon

Level 4

1,542 points

Sep 22, 2009 3:14 AM in response to byaru

Probably not what you want to hear... but I don't fancy your
chances of recovering much. You would need to contact a
company that specialises in data recovery but that will be
expensive and will depend on how important the data is
that you have deleted.

You would also need to stop using the machine right now
because every thing you do is likely to reduce the chances
of recovery as more disk will be overwritten with new stuff.

Dave

Reply

Answer 2

Sep 22, 2009 3:42 AM in response to byaru

1. Pray.
2. Get Data Rescue II.

Reply

Answer 3

byaru Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 22, 2009 4:15 AM in response to Mason Sklut

Mason Sklut wrote:
1. Pray.
2. Get Data Rescue II.

ok, i try your solution reordered 2,1 🙂
thx
eb

Reply

Answer 4

byaru Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 22, 2009 4:17 AM in response to dbsneddon

dbsneddon wrote:
Probably not what you want to hear... but I don't fancy your
chances of recovering much. You would need to contact a
company that specialises in data recovery but that will be
expensive and will depend on how important the data is
that you have deleted.

You would also need to stop using the machine right now
because every thing you do is likely to reduce the chances
of recovery as more disk will be overwritten with new stuff.

this is certainly getting scary - i prefer a tool that will recover data without much disruption of productivity, i still need to use the notebook 😟

Reply

Answer 5

Sep 22, 2009 4:24 AM in response to byaru

There is also FileSalvage
<http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main page=product_info&productsid=1>
Like DataRescue, it has a free trial mode, so you can see if it can find anything before you have to pay for it.

Reply

Answer 6

byaru Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 22, 2009 5:31 AM in response to Malcolm Rayfield

Malcolm Rayfield wrote:
There is also FileSalvage
< http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main page=product_info&productsid=1>
Like DataRescue, it has a free trial mode, so you can see if it can find anything before you have to pay for it.

I'm now giving Data Rescue II a try - will see what happens !

Reply

Answer 7

a brody

Level 10

85,314 points

Sep 22, 2009 7:46 AM in response to byaru

Boomerang's Boomerang is a third option as well.

But I would caution you this, do not boot directly into the machine's hard drive. Boot off the recovery tool's software CD if it provides a boot mode. Every write to the hard drive, including swap files etc... lessens the chances of recovery.

Use the startup manager to do the boot, as 'C' key doesn't always work right:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106178

In the future always backup your data*:

http://www.macmaps.com/backup.html

Whomever recommended rm -rf to you should be reprimanded. rm -ri (that's the letter I as in 'eye' after the r) is much, much safer, and gives you an interactive yes/no dialog on each file, and still gives you the recursiveness you want.

- * Links to my pages may give me compensation.

Reply

Answer 8

G J Piper

Level 1

112 points

Sep 22, 2009 9:46 PM in response to byaru

byaru wrote:

Mason Sklut wrote:
1. Pray.
2. Get Data Rescue II.

ok, i try your solution reordered 2,1 🙂
thx
eb

Byaru had the order correct. Reversing it has less chance of succeeding. 😉

Reply

Answer 9

Sep 23, 2009 1:24 PM in response to G J Piper

Haha. Simple mistake on my part.

Reply

Answer 10

thomas_r.

Level 7

32,031 points

Sep 23, 2009 2:06 PM in response to byaru

Since you re-installed the system, you've written a lot of files onto the system. That means a lot of the old files will have been overwritten. Most likely, most of your files are gone permanently. You might be able to recover a few, but don't expect the process to be pretty. It won't be.

Also, the fact that nothing was backed up is the reason you're in this predicament right now. Once you get up and running again, you must begin backing up immediately! Check out my [Mac Backup Guide|http://www.reedcorner.net/thomas/guides/backups> for more assistance with this.

Reply

Answer 11

Tim Haigh

Level 7

24,198 points

Sep 23, 2009 2:14 PM in response to byaru

your data should be there on your timemachine backup. You know the no brainer backup system that appeared in leopard.

Reply

Answer 12

a brody

Level 10

85,314 points

Sep 23, 2009 2:58 PM in response to Tim Haigh

Tim,
He said nothing was backed up in the first post.

Reply

Answer 13

byaru Author

Level 1

0 points

Sep 23, 2009 11:58 PM in response to thomas_r.

Thomas A Reed wrote:
Since you re-installed the system, you've written a lot of
files onto the system.

Correct - I tried Data Rescue II and indeed recovered nothing..

...

Also, the fact that nothing was backed up is the reason you're
in this predicament right now. Once you get up and running
again, you must begin backing up immediately!

yep - you're preaching to the choir 😟
No need to say much, learned my lesson already.
Time machine is already backing up to a drive on an ubuntu box on my LAN.

thx
eb

Reply

Answer 14

a brody

Level 10

85,314 points

Sep 24, 2009 6:39 AM in response to byaru

Contact Drivesavers, they can often recover when others can not, but cost thousands of U.S. dollars. I do believe they have free estimates though, and should be able to tell you the likelihood of recovery. If they can't recover it, I'd take it as a loss.

Message was edited by: a brody

Reply