Best Data Recovery software

[soundbase]

I accidentally deleted the wrong External Hard Drive on my Mac.

I had an external Hard drive with 3 partitions. It had a partition with a disk image of the 10.5 install disc, a partition with the 10.6 install disc, and then a data drive with data in. I accidentally erased the drive with disk utility and created 3 new partitions of different sizes. I have not yet copied any data onto the partitions and was wanting to use a data recovery software to retrieve the 3 different partitions. Which is the best data recovery software to use for this. I have Data Rescue and Stellar Phoenix. Do I use the recover deleted/lost files of deleted/lost volumes if I use Stellar Phoenix?

What I have noticed is when I use these data recovery software for deleted items the names of the files are different after the recovery. Is there anyway to retrieve the correct filenames as well.

[miles01110]

Data Rescue is probably your best bet; but you're likely not going to be able to recover anything.

[flankgrace]

I have just used Mac data recovery to recover the lost data.
You can find the information here:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...1#post12603532

[soundbase]

I Have been running Stellar Phoenix the whole day. It is still running but it looks like it has recovered 52GB, will be interesting to see if it actually pulls proper files back or if the 52GB is all gibberish.

On their site it states that it even pulls data from "Undelete all your files, folders, documents even after completely emptying the Trash by hitting 'Command+Shift+Option+Backspace'."

And: "Recover any Mac Partition/Volume that has been deleted months ago. With Stellar Mac Data Recovery, you can search and list all the previously existed volumes in your Mac hard drive."

So I'm holding thumbs. Will keep you guys posted if it was all successful

[Fuith]

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk Brilliant piece of software. Command line only though.

[stellarinfo]

Hi soundbase!
Thanks for using Stellar Phoenix Mac- Please update us about your progress we promise to help you. if file system is not changed, Use search for lost volume option to search for deleted partition. After Search, you needs to scan lost volume for data using Advance Recovery option. This option takes more time as compared to Quick Recovery but gives best outcome.

Please feel free to contact our Support Team if required.
Thanks
Stellarinfo

[francisiee]

I use this Data Recovery softawer, it works great.
You can use it to scan the lost data and choose what you want to recover.
It can recover your deleted, formatted, lost and inaccessible data from PC, USB drive, external hard drive, mobile phone

[Sirolway]

Originally Posted by Fuith

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk Brilliant piece of software. Command line only though.

+1

If you have non-Mac partitions, in particular, this thing will recover just about anything. I used it to recover about 1TB off an ext2 (ext3?) format NAS drive

[Fishrrman]

"What I have noticed is when I use these data recovery software for deleted items the names of the files are different after the recovery. Is there anyway to retrieve the correct filenames as well."

You probably are going to lose most, if not all, of your file/folder hierarchies when using data recovery software.

That's just the way it works. Think of it this way -- the file names and folder hierarchies are "constructs of the directory", which was destroyed when you erased or re-initialized.

But erasing/re-initializing doesn't "touch" the data itself (unless the user chooses to "zero out" the data, in which case file recovery won't work). Even though the file names and "pointers" to the location of the files are wiped out (with the directory), the data is STILL THERE, out on the sectors of the drive's platters.

File recovery software works by "going around" the directory, "ignoring" it, so to speak. The software goes right to the sectors, and scavenges whatever it finds, then "re-assembles" the pieces back into files. This is why it takes so long.

So, the consolation is that even though you lose the filenames, you get the actual data back, and isn't that what's important?

[Krisnana]

Originally Posted by miles01110

Data Rescue is probably your best bet; but you're likely not going to be able to recover anything.

Thanks so much for your reply. It truly helped me. I was able to recover almost all of my photos. The customer support line they offer was wonderful. answered all of my questions and helped walk through the recovery.

Best software for recovery.

And yes, I'll be backing up my system on a daily basis so I don't make any more stupid mistakes that I can't recover easily.

[Delores]

Recently, I also encountered the similar data recovery problems. That’s exactly why I came here to share my feelings with you about this old thread.
My problems like this: one of my drive partitions was mistakenly formatted by me instead of another partition. So, I even had no time to back up my important data on this partition.
In order to get back my erased data, I had read many articles and forums threads. Many people suggested me to use a third party data recovery tools. But, actually, I nearly knew nothing about data recovery stuff. Therefore, I only tried some free data drive data recovery tools recommended by them, such as Recuva, PhotoRec and iCare Data Recovery Free, etc.
They were free and efficient in retrieving my inaccessible data.
Fortunately, due to these free data recovery tools, I finally saved all my data back from this formatted partition.
So, If someone has similar problems, I think he also could give these freeware a shot.