I did rm -rf, recovery possible?

[backspinner]

I made a scripting error (as root), and now I have an empty harddisk... :(

I have a recent backup, but I'm missing the even more recent work. Which programs will work in this case to recover?

I switched off the Powerbook in the middle of the process but without any luck. I can mount the powerbook as a firewire drive to an iMac. I tried Data Rescue X but this one can only find older stuff.

Any info or laughs are welcomed...

[homeshire]

no laughs -- just sympathies. :(

I wish I could offer help or advice. I cannot.

[backspinner]

Update so far: Data Rescue X doesn't recover deleted files, only crashed files. If you delete a file with a delete command, the file entry is removed so that it is not findable anymore for this program. It's in their manual...

VirtualLab Client is currently running, but this one needs a live internet connection which is not really nice. And it's very expensive.

Anyone experienced in using DiskWarrior? There seems not to be an evaluation version. Does it handle *deleted* files?

[Mal]

DiskWarrior I don't believe has any file recovery capabilities, Norton SystemWorks does, but I isn't great. Unless you can find something else, I think you may be out of luck. sorry.

JW

[skymaXimus]

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/15344

[backspinner]

Thanks for your replies!

Diskwarrior doesn't do any repair. I learned the hard way by buying their ancient product. What is it good for? Ah well, now I was able to "work" in OS 9. What a piece of crap! I now even more appreciate OS X.

I also used the VirtualLab software, but that didn't recover *what I was missing*. It did recover numerous files, as one big heap of renumbered files. I check about a hundred but it was all very old stuff. I guess the unix remove is quite strong :-(

I need my computer, so tonight I will reinstall OS X. Maybe a fresh system will make me feel better :rolleyes:

[evildead]

Norton can recover some trashed files... but... not all.

I hade a user run a rm -rf on / and took out the boot partion. Lucky I take nightly backups.... but that was at work

[benixau]

ummm .... no.

in unix a general rule applies - not even norton can really aviod this:
once its gone, its gone.

and your using the force switch really did it. oh well. i know how you feel - really. we all aave done that some time or another and then vowed to never do it again. but we do. thats life.

good luck

[rainman::|:|]

well, it's not for everyone but there is one possible remedy. there are data recovery specialists who use the same techniques that government/hackers use. For the most part these guys can recover almost anything-- even if it's been overwritten once... but not always, and not reliably. In any case, the last time i priced data recovery was years ago but it was something like $120/meg at that time.

So it's only for those things that you *really* can't live without.

other than that, which was admittedly no help at all, i have nothing :( sorry...

pnw

[backspinner]

Originally posted by benixau
ummm .... no.

In unix a general rule applies - not even norton can really aviod this:
once its gone, its gone.
in Dutch we call that "weg is weg" which sounds great :p

And it's gone indeed. But I feel better now. I have a fresh new system, running the just released 10.2.5 and I have now plenty of room on my hard drive. I have not a single MP3 file and that is doing the trick :p

The best results I had with the VirtualLab software, but it recovers file on TYPE, not on NAME so it mainly gives a long unsorted list of old files. Not very useful and you have to pay $100 to restore a GB of it.

Thanks for all the replies. I will buy some system to make nightlies. My powerbook is for personal and pet-project use, but I use it at work as well and the work systems are backupped each night but the powerbook is not there at night...