Recovering overwritten files?

Welcome to the discussion forums!

I'm quite sure, there is no software that can do that. As soon as you have the file overwritten it's pretty much lost.

I've heard of companies that you could send your HD to and who would take it apart to maybe recover overwritten stuff. I don't know how much of this is true.

zolte:

Welcome to Apple Discussions.

There are software packages that can sometimes recover deleted files. However, as your file has been overwritten it no longer exists except in the new incarnation; there is no directory for it. In my inexpert opinion I believe it is a week of work lost.

Good luck.

cornelius

PismoG4 550, 100GB 5400 Toshiba internal, 1 GB RAM; Pismo 500 OS X (10.4.5) Mac OS X (10.4.5) Beige G3 OS 8.6

I wouldn't be quite as pessimistic as the other responses. Just because the new file has the same name as the old one doesn't mean it occupies the same disk space. Recovery software might be worth trying. That said, anytime a file is deleted -- unless the machine is shut down promptly after the accident -- the prospects are not bright.

I can't recommend any software, but several choices come up if you search versiontracker for "file recovery".

In particular, I believe Data Rescue allows you to attempt recovery of some limited number of files (must be under 5mb in size) straight from demo mode.