Help!! Lost iTunes files on external hard drive

[jpspecial]

I keep my iTunes music on an OWC external firewire hard drive to save space on my aging iMac. Stupidly, as I was replacing old data on the external hard drive with more recent data (iPhoto and Garageband--which I store on my computer's hard drive), I replaced my entire 36 gb iTunes music on the external hard drive with iTunes music from my mac that is empty!

Is there a way I can recover my data from the external hard drive? What happens when you replace files? Where does it go? What tools can I use?

Thanks so much. I'm so sick to my stomach I don't think I'll be able to enjoy my Thanksgiving meal!

 

[Ice-Cube]

Stop writing files to the external drive IMMEDIATELY. Chances are you can still recover files using 3rd party software.

 

[jpspecial]

Which 3rd party software would you recommend? Or should I take it to my nearest Apple Store?

 

[Laurencia7]

do you have time machine? you can undo some of the files lost...but i would take the drive and the mac to the apple store just to see if they can help the stress. Losing files sucks.

 

[Bennieboy©]

you could try this to recover your files
mac file recovery