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kalimac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 28, 2008
3
0
I have accidently replaced my desktop folder with a blank desktop folder. When the alert came up "An Item named "Desktop" already exists in this location. Do you want to replace it with the one you are moving?" I clicked replace as I thought it was the new one..... Now the items are nowhere to be seen. I have done system searches and they are gone. I am tempted to use Boomerang Data Recovery, but not sure if it will find these items? Can anyone help...?
 

Makosuke

macrumors 604
Aug 15, 2001
6,663
1,244
The Cool Part of CA, USA
No amount of searching is going to come up with anything; as far as the OS and filesystem are concerned, when you clicked "replaced" anything in the old folder vanished.

I'm not sure about Boomerang, but your best bet for getting anything back is this:

1) STOP USING THE COMPUTER--the more time it is turned on, the more likely the data is to be overwritten and definitely permanently erased.

2) Get a copy of Data Rescue II and run it on the disk while booted from a different drive (get another computer if you have to and use Target Disk Mode). With any luck, Data Rescue II will be able to locate and retrieve some, if not all, of the deleted files.

If it's no good, you're probably looking at very high-priced data recovery services, and even that's iffy.
 

Makosuke

macrumors 604
Aug 15, 2001
6,663
1,244
The Cool Part of CA, USA
Huh, hadn't heard of testdisk before. I'll definitely give it a shot next time I'm desperate (hopefully not for a long while), and it'd be good to have a decent alternative to Data Rescue II. Techtool Pro also has a similar feature, but the one time I tried it when the computer didn't have TTP's protection utility running it didn't work nearly as well as Data Rescue.
 

kalimac

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 28, 2008
3
0
Boomerang works beautifully!

I just purchased Boomerang Data Recovery as it seemed the most likely to recover without doing any damage and it worked beautifully! I have found files I didn't even know that I'd lost from months ago! Worth every penny!
 

HLdan

macrumors 603
Aug 22, 2007
6,383
0
I just purchased Boomerang Data Recovery as it seemed the most likely to recover without doing any damage and it worked beautifully! I have found files I didn't even know that I'd lost from months ago! Worth every penny!

Don't forget Time Machine exists. It's really the best solution for data recovery and it's built-in with Leopard.
 
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