URGENT Help Restoring Old Mac OS FIles After Install and No Backup

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Level 1

4 points

URGENT Help Restoring Old Mac OS FIles After Install and No Backup

Have an older MacBook that was on Mac OS 10.5.?. A friend of mine just did an install of Snow Leopard but did not back up any of the files. He says it was a clean install.

Is there any way I might be able to restore any of the files that used to be on my system before the clean upgrade to 10.6? I am particularly concerned with iPhoto. My music is all on my iPod that I can copy off, and apps I have backups of.

Thanks

iMac, MacBook, iPhone 4, Mac OS X (10.6)

Posted on Aug 19, 2010 1:58 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 19, 2010 2:07 PM in response to JCrew7384

Have you actually examined the computer to see if your "friend" really did a clean install?

Maybe he doesn't know what that means. One can hope.

Arch

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Answer 2

AxL

Level 6

11,435 points

Aug 19, 2010 2:11 PM in response to JCrew7384

First thing to do is DO NOT USE IT now for storing more data on it.

(Most of) your old data is still somewhere on the disk, but now you need an expensive tool which is able to recover it.
I don't know about this one
http://www.macintosh-data-recovery.com/
?

Arch is right though:
Upgrading to Snow Leopard should "naturally" keep your old data untouched, except if one chooses on purpose to do a "clean install".

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Answer 3

sig

Level 8

35,862 points

Aug 19, 2010 5:23 PM in response to AxL

There is no such thing as "clean install". If your friend did an Erase & Install then it's all gone. But he would have had to launch Disk Utility from the SL disk, select Erase disk and then install SL.

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Answer 4

AxL

Level 6

11,435 points

Aug 19, 2010 10:02 PM in response to sig

«If your friend did an Erase & Install then ...»

If your friend did an Erase & Install, without Secure-Erasing them, then (most of) your files are still on the hard drive, but you'll have to use one of these:

http://www.recoverdatatools.com/mac-data-recovery.html
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
http://www.boomdrs.com/
http://www.macintosh-data-recovery.com/

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