In Dire need of help! file recovery.

[Xacttech]

I was optimizing my computer today, and used "Mac Janitor"

Well, whatever it decided to do it completely wiped out my USER, and upon restart everything under, all documents, music, pictures, and desktop items were gone.

I've used a few disk recovery utilities, but they aren't finding the RIGHT files...

The only thing that found "some" of the right files is "virtual lab" but it is way too expensive for me to pay for the fix. (Like $200+)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also I would caution those who use Mac Janitor to back up pertinent information prior to its use. I've heard it's a great program and have seen decent reviews, but I'm wishing more than anything I hadn't used it.

If anyone know any utilities that may aid in my recovery I'd greatly appreciate it.

THANKS!!

[dudeami]

I've not used these, but they have demos too. A little cheaper.

http://www.prosofteng.com/

Or maybe Symantec

http://www.symantec.com/nu/nu_mac/features.html

[rainman::|:|]

you're absolutely certain these files weren't simply moved, made read-only (or completely locked), or made invisible? macjanitor simply runs the maintenance scripts that OS X would anyway, i'll put 99% odds on it not being the culprit here. Spend some time making sure the files are really gone, and it's not something small and silly... like, you can't read from your library folder, or something. If the permissions in your home directory get screwey, it can really wreak havoc on user-interface...

and of course, if they really are gone, avoid using the disk for any reason before you make a recovery attempt, even daily use. Every single bit of data that gets written (and doing something like opening a window causes disk activity) decreases your chances of pulling intact files.

paul