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BIG problem, I need a bit of help...

CrackedButter

CrackedButter

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jan 15, 2003
3,221
0
51st State of America
I just found a photo in my home folder, what it was doing there I don't know, I didn't move it there. Anyway, i moved it to the bin because I know I have a copy of it. Then when I right clicked and emptied the bin, a huge wad of hard drive churning took place and over 500 items were deleted.

I for some reason I had just deleted my entire picture folder!

iPhoto is now reporting that it cannot find my library and I AM bothered! I had just been doing some photographic work for a supermarket and I need those images. How can I get them back? I heard there was a way and I really need them badly.

How the hell my entire picture folder was in the bin I do not know either, I certainly didn't move them there and nobody in my house knows how to use a mac. Luckily I am back up mad and havn't lost anything other than my supermarket work.

Help is needed big time friends... :eek:
 
MoparShaha

MoparShaha

Contributor
May 15, 2003
1,646
38
San Francisco
I think your only solution is data recovery software. I don't know of any, or how effective they are. Try doing a google search on it. If that fails, you can always take it to a professional data recovery center. It'll cost you, but you'll have your files recovered.
 
CanadaRAM

CanadaRAM

macrumors G5
Oct 11, 2004
12,417
6
On the Left Coast - Victoria BC Canada
BIG problem, I need a bit of help...

General advice:
Don't do any more work on a hard drive that you need to recover files from. Don't create, modify or erase files: any further activity will diminish any chance of recovering deleted files. If you can, boot from another volume.

If it were me, I would go and get an external Firewire drive, like NOW, and set it up as a boot drive so you're not booting off the drive with the deleted photos.

Then use Carbon Copy Cloner to move everything you can to the new drive and set Startup Disk to boot from it.

Then it's decision time. If those photos are worth $1000 - $2000 to you, plus FedEx, pull out the drive and send it to a data recovery shop - ActionFront, Total Recall, DiskSavers. Be sure to get a quote first, emphasizing that it is a deleted file recovery and not a dead drive, and that it is Mac OSX.

The catch is the more efforts you put into data recovery yourself, the less chance the pros have of recovery, because your attempts are likely to delete some of the critical info that is needed for recovery.

Do not use Norton Systemworks on an OSX drive. I have seen too much Norton-induced drive destruction.

DataRescue X http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue_info.php is the data recovery software of choice, but they specifically state that it cannot recover files deleted by the user in OS X because the UNIX OS overwrites the deleted files immediately.

Both DataRescue X and TechTool Pro 4 only offer a hope of recovering deleted files if you had been running their respective file-protection programs prior to deletion.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com
 
gekko513

gekko513

macrumors 603
Oct 16, 2003
6,301
1
This software claims to do the job. I haven't tried it

Data Recycler

Edit: Or, maybe not, I'm not sure but it could be that it will only allow you to undelete files that were deleted after you have installed and set up Data Recycler.
 
gekko513

gekko513

macrumors 603
Oct 16, 2003
6,301
1
And let this also be a yet another reminder to us all of the importance of backup.
 
CrackedButter

CrackedButter

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Jan 15, 2003
3,221
0
51st State of America
I know this is a lesson in backing up, luckily, I have only lost 140 photos and I don't think I will bother salvaging them either, the most important ones are already inside a psd file awaiting further editing, that was on another drive thankfully.

Okay thanks for your help, I'll look into these programs and think about buying them.
 
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