If Data Rescue doesn't work, you could try Macintosh Data Recovery; there's a free download.
Haven't tried it - don't know if it's any good.
Haven't tried it - don't know if it's any good.
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Help! Just erased my hard disk... weeks of work lost.
- Thread starter fried-gold
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Testdisk
I have been able to use testdisk to recover data:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
YMMV
I have been able to use testdisk to recover data:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
YMMV
As someone else very validly said, the key is to go slow. So if you've still got that heavy-chest panic feeling go and take a walk to think it through.
Follow these steps before going down the expensive data recovery route. I've recovered literally thousands of files from my own and friends drives without using professionals. The only time I needed to send a drive off was when it physically broke - they had to rebuild it using an identical model = ££££.
Now I backup using Backblaze as-well as an external Time Machine drive which, 99% of the time, isn't connected to my Mac. Haven't lost a file in years.
1. Make a byte-accurate image of the drive using dd
1.1 If you use a data recovery program and it goes wrong you'll lose your work. Therefore, use another Mac and connect the Mac with the work on to it. You'll need to use FireWire target disk mode, if the machine has it (otherwise you're going to need to get a disk enclosure. These cost next to nothing on eBay):
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20020401233536141
1.2 Then use the dd command to make an image of the drive:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050302225659382
1.3 Then lock the image (Click on the file > Get Info > Tick the 'Locked' checkbox.
1.4 Disconnect the Mac with your work on and put it somewhere safe. Not on the edge of your desk because you're in a hurry.
2. Work on that image, not the drive with your work on
2.1 The first thing to do is to see if the image mounts by double-clicking on it. If it does, simply drag your files/work across and don't make the same mistake again.
2.2 If not, make a copy of the image. Unlock this new copy, and leave the original intact.
2.3 Install one of the recommended file recovery programs on your temporary Mac, not on the image with your work on - you risk overwriting something important.
2.4 Then run the file recovery program(s) on the new, unlocked, image. You'll likely recover all your work but often I notice that certain metadata, such as date modified, isn't pulled across. I'd like to think due to the very small amount of data you overwrote you'll be ok.
2.5 If those don't work (which would surprise me very much), then it's time for data recovery.
Good luck. Any more questions don't hesitate to ask. And don't worry about all the pointless abuse you've received here; despite you already admitting your fault some people will always feel the need to go high and mighty, explaining how they'd obviously never do something like that. Everyone make mistakes.
AppleMatt
Follow these steps before going down the expensive data recovery route. I've recovered literally thousands of files from my own and friends drives without using professionals. The only time I needed to send a drive off was when it physically broke - they had to rebuild it using an identical model = ££££.
Now I backup using Backblaze as-well as an external Time Machine drive which, 99% of the time, isn't connected to my Mac. Haven't lost a file in years.
1. Make a byte-accurate image of the drive using dd
1.1 If you use a data recovery program and it goes wrong you'll lose your work. Therefore, use another Mac and connect the Mac with the work on to it. You'll need to use FireWire target disk mode, if the machine has it (otherwise you're going to need to get a disk enclosure. These cost next to nothing on eBay):
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20020401233536141
1.2 Then use the dd command to make an image of the drive:
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20050302225659382
1.3 Then lock the image (Click on the file > Get Info > Tick the 'Locked' checkbox.
1.4 Disconnect the Mac with your work on and put it somewhere safe. Not on the edge of your desk because you're in a hurry.
2. Work on that image, not the drive with your work on
2.1 The first thing to do is to see if the image mounts by double-clicking on it. If it does, simply drag your files/work across and don't make the same mistake again.
2.2 If not, make a copy of the image. Unlock this new copy, and leave the original intact.
2.3 Install one of the recommended file recovery programs on your temporary Mac, not on the image with your work on - you risk overwriting something important.
2.4 Then run the file recovery program(s) on the new, unlocked, image. You'll likely recover all your work but often I notice that certain metadata, such as date modified, isn't pulled across. I'd like to think due to the very small amount of data you overwrote you'll be ok.
2.5 If those don't work (which would surprise me very much), then it's time for data recovery.
Good luck. Any more questions don't hesitate to ask. And don't worry about all the pointless abuse you've received here; despite you already admitting your fault some people will always feel the need to go high and mighty, explaining how they'd obviously never do something like that. Everyone make mistakes.
AppleMatt
Thank you AppleMatt for your very detailed and knowledgeable advice. Unfortunately I got the local computer repair lab to come round and pick up the laptop this morning before I had a chance to look at your post, if only you'd been around at 4 a.m. this morning! Nevertheless I shall make a note of it and store it somewhere safe lest I get myself in this situation again (please, god, no). The Lab that are looking at the laptop also deal with all of the data recovery for RBS, BoS, and the scottish parliament, so at least I know its in safe hands. They quoted a rough estimate of £150 - good bye new b&w speakers 
- however, I am consoling myself with the fact that even at a basic minimum wage, the hours of work on the disk lost through screwing it up somewhere along the line would far outweigh this cost. Also the cost of software needed to restore the data amounts to a third of this cost alone, and the apple authorised centre quoted a figure of somewhere around £500 so it could be a lot worse.
Thanks jelite, the polar bear really made my day, very befitting of my mood indeed. Thanks to everyone else for your advice. Fingers crossed in a couple of days I should have all my data back.
- however, I am consoling myself with the fact that even at a basic minimum wage, the hours of work on the disk lost through screwing it up somewhere along the line would far outweigh this cost. Also the cost of software needed to restore the data amounts to a third of this cost alone, and the apple authorised centre quoted a figure of somewhere around £500 so it could be a lot worse.Thanks jelite, the polar bear really made my day, very befitting of my mood indeed. Thanks to everyone else for your advice. Fingers crossed in a couple of days I should have all my data back.
Crap, beat me to it. TestDisk works... and its free. You won't get 100% back, but maybe, just maybe, you can recover the majority of your portfolio. And you only had ONE backup of something THAT important? CDs, flash drives, etc., ARE YOUR FRIEND.
I kept like five copies of my graphic design portfolio (of course, I never could find the backups when I actually needed one, lol).
Data Rescue II or something similar would be one to recover data. DiskWarrior is a good program, but for rebuilding filesystems and the like.
I'd also suggest having a backup plan just in case... Think about other possibilities: did you store files at any point on a networked drive at your university? If so, even if deleted, the IT dept. might be able to recover backups. They almost religiously backup network drives (onto tape) and store backups (offsite). Were the files emailed at any point? Maybe your outbox or someone else's inbox has some treasures. Presumably there is also the erased Time Machine drive to potentially recover files from... Etc.
Yeah I have a couple of time machine backups i recently erased that would be worth a try if the data recovery comes back negative. I've stopped using the drives and i'm investigating disk warrior. The irritating thing with this whole scenario is that i am usually ridiculously anal about backing up, but i've changed my laptop 3 times in the past month, and was trying to organise all the folders, deleting spare copies of files to make the process as quick as possible. If only i'd bought a bugger HD to use with time machine when I had the chance, but as I living off my girlfriend financially thought I would wait until I got a job... Just goes to show some things are worth spending the money on...
If all goes tits up I still have some hard copies of the most important images, some of them are pretty high quality and A1+ in size so I could always try and scan them. Still there would be a considerable loss in quality.
I guess you should take your Laptop for some Computer Repair Service that can give you fast reliable service. And moreover what you can do is download some data recovery software from the internet. Hope it will work you out....
A file recovery tale...
As I type this (on an old g4), over on the other table my Intel iMac is hard at work recovering tens upon tens of gigabytes of "lost" files from an external drive I had been using to store mp3 files.
I formerly kept them on an external Hitachi 3.5" (second Hitachi to fail on me in succession, I think I'll avoid them from now on) in a "ministack" enclosure. The drive was divided into 3 partitions, one of which was used to store the mp3 files.
Never a hiccup from the drive until a couple of weeks ago, when - upon trying to spin up and mount the external - all I got was some "scratching" sounds from it, and the iMac hanging while trying to mount all three partitions.
Yipes! After some effort, I could get two of the three partitions to mount, but the one I really wanted - the mp3 files - would not mount.
At this point I was thinking directory/partition map damage or even outright "hardware failure". I figured the drive and the mp3 files were gone for good.
I tried taking the drive out of its enclosure, and mounting in my g4 (which has plenty of bays and connections). Still couldn't get the critical partition to mount.
At this point, the drive wouldn't mount at all, and would hang the computer while trying. The only "out" was to "force-power-down" the g4 and disconnect the drive.
I couldn't get anything to mount all three partitions. No way to "attack" the problem partition if the computer would hang while trying to mount it.
There had to be another way.
I finally decided to "destroy" the bad partition by re-partitioning the disk into two pieces. Disk Utility did this, but now when the drive mounted, it showed as only half the space (about 128gig) as its actual capacity (250gig).
I was able to mount the drive and "go at" it with Data Rescue II. DR2 did its thing (took several hours of scanning and organizing), and presented me with a "recovered files" list, but there will still problems. Most of the files showing as "mp3s" could be saved, but then couldn't be opened by any applications. Something about the data recovery process had gone wrong, the files "looked good" on their face but were still corrupted.
After a couple of tries I was about ready to give up and toss the drive out. But I decided to give it one more go, to try to "get all the drive space" back. I launched Disk Utility again and re-initialized the drive as a SINGLE partition. After this, it now showed (using "get info) its FULL capacity.
What the heck - I decided to try Data Rescue one more time.
THIS time it worked! DR2, scanning the one, large partition, located the lost files , AND, they were usable. The only "catch" about the recovery is that although DR "finds the files", during the process of recovery you lose the "hierarchy of folders" that the files [formerly] resided in. What you end up with is just a large "pile of files". How to sort out thousands upon thousands of mp3 titles?
By this time, I had picked up another drive (Seagate) and now had enough capacity to recover the files to en masse.
Was able to "get them all into one place" last night.
This morning, am importing them all - 17,400 of them - into iTunes (which I never cared for all that much before, but read on). Amazingly (probably through the "tag info") iTunes is re-grouping the files into the artists/albums that they originally existed in.
When that's done, I can the use iTunes as an "index" to manually re-copy the files into new folders representing artists/titles.
Yes, a lot of work. Now I understand why professional data recovery services charge as much as they do!
The moral of the story (if you've read this far) is to KEEP TRYING. I was ready to give up a couple of times, and kept coming back at it. The reward is that I'm going to get most everything back. Maybe not ALL of it, but most of it.
Having said that, I found that Data Rescue II worked when nothing else seemed to help.
To the original poster - if you have the drive that has the files on it - even if they were erased - chances are the files are STILL THERE, so long as you don't write to the drive and it isn't physically broken. Get the right tools, at least one spare drive with extra capacity, and [carefully] work on it. Even with lost partitions, you have a chance to get the stuff back. Remember, I had to DESTROY my existing partitions, before I could even proceed with the file recovery.
- John
As I type this (on an old g4), over on the other table my Intel iMac is hard at work recovering tens upon tens of gigabytes of "lost" files from an external drive I had been using to store mp3 files.
I formerly kept them on an external Hitachi 3.5" (second Hitachi to fail on me in succession, I think I'll avoid them from now on) in a "ministack" enclosure. The drive was divided into 3 partitions, one of which was used to store the mp3 files.
Never a hiccup from the drive until a couple of weeks ago, when - upon trying to spin up and mount the external - all I got was some "scratching" sounds from it, and the iMac hanging while trying to mount all three partitions.
Yipes! After some effort, I could get two of the three partitions to mount, but the one I really wanted - the mp3 files - would not mount.
At this point I was thinking directory/partition map damage or even outright "hardware failure". I figured the drive and the mp3 files were gone for good.
I tried taking the drive out of its enclosure, and mounting in my g4 (which has plenty of bays and connections). Still couldn't get the critical partition to mount.
At this point, the drive wouldn't mount at all, and would hang the computer while trying. The only "out" was to "force-power-down" the g4 and disconnect the drive.
I couldn't get anything to mount all three partitions. No way to "attack" the problem partition if the computer would hang while trying to mount it.
There had to be another way.
I finally decided to "destroy" the bad partition by re-partitioning the disk into two pieces. Disk Utility did this, but now when the drive mounted, it showed as only half the space (about 128gig) as its actual capacity (250gig).
I was able to mount the drive and "go at" it with Data Rescue II. DR2 did its thing (took several hours of scanning and organizing), and presented me with a "recovered files" list, but there will still problems. Most of the files showing as "mp3s" could be saved, but then couldn't be opened by any applications. Something about the data recovery process had gone wrong, the files "looked good" on their face but were still corrupted.
After a couple of tries I was about ready to give up and toss the drive out. But I decided to give it one more go, to try to "get all the drive space" back. I launched Disk Utility again and re-initialized the drive as a SINGLE partition. After this, it now showed (using "get info) its FULL capacity.
What the heck - I decided to try Data Rescue one more time.
THIS time it worked! DR2, scanning the one, large partition, located the lost files , AND, they were usable. The only "catch" about the recovery is that although DR "finds the files", during the process of recovery you lose the "hierarchy of folders" that the files [formerly] resided in. What you end up with is just a large "pile of files". How to sort out thousands upon thousands of mp3 titles?
By this time, I had picked up another drive (Seagate) and now had enough capacity to recover the files to en masse.
Was able to "get them all into one place" last night.
This morning, am importing them all - 17,400 of them - into iTunes (which I never cared for all that much before, but read on). Amazingly (probably through the "tag info") iTunes is re-grouping the files into the artists/albums that they originally existed in.
When that's done, I can the use iTunes as an "index" to manually re-copy the files into new folders representing artists/titles.
Yes, a lot of work. Now I understand why professional data recovery services charge as much as they do!
The moral of the story (if you've read this far) is to KEEP TRYING. I was ready to give up a couple of times, and kept coming back at it. The reward is that I'm going to get most everything back. Maybe not ALL of it, but most of it.
Having said that, I found that Data Rescue II worked when nothing else seemed to help.
To the original poster - if you have the drive that has the files on it - even if they were erased - chances are the files are STILL THERE, so long as you don't write to the drive and it isn't physically broken. Get the right tools, at least one spare drive with extra capacity, and [carefully] work on it. Even with lost partitions, you have a chance to get the stuff back. Remember, I had to DESTROY my existing partitions, before I could even proceed with the file recovery.
- John