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I'm dead!! :,( how can I restore to yesterday my MacOS Leopard?! all work files gone!
- Thread starter macmania82
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Recovery just completed!
it didnt recover any lost data
when I look into recovered files folder, I found all my current files, and nothing about the lost data
I guess I have tried everything I can do , and no success
it didnt recover any lost data
when I look into recovered files folder, I found all my current files, and nothing about the lost data I guess I have tried everything I can do , and no success
Truly sorry to hear that.Recovery just completed!
it didnt recover any lost data
I guess I have tried everything I can do , and no success
I'll bet you have some rather sopisticated backup plans for future.....
I'm pretty sure that the Server was his computer... Hence him downloading MAMP to it. The OP is probably the only one that really knows.
School boy error. I assumed that he just used MAMP for dev testing.
No matter how many times people get told that hosting on their own computer without the protections offered by a decent data centre (such as reliable off site backups, surge protection and backup power generators) they continue to do so.
You would be surprised.
Just to double check was this a recovery on a clone of the internal or the internal itself?
I'm just slightly surprised that you've managed to retrieve nothing whatsoever: overwriting every single one of your files (as in overwriting the whole thing with 1s and 0s as opposed to simply removing from the directory structure as delete normally does) seems incredibly unlucky.
I'm just slightly surprised that you've managed to retrieve nothing whatsoever: overwriting every single one of your files (as in overwriting the whole thing with 1s and 0s as opposed to simply removing from the directory structure as delete normally does) seems incredibly unlucky.
I checked 9345373 times :/
how all these mess happened is;
I had a htdocs folder, and all projects under this folder... I had a trouble with apache, and downloaded MAMP again. I was so tired, (after long nights working recently and sleepy), I stupidly pasted the fresh MAMP on current one. and it replaced htdocs as well as empty. so when I went in htdocs, I had none of my files there
so silly huh!!
Hi,
Sorry to hear of your situation - I've just read the thread.
Are you sure there is nobody nearby who has a Mac so that you could take your machine round, connect a firewire cable between the Mac's and then use target disk mode on your machine to let the other machine run data rescue? How about local Apple stores or resellers? They might even help you for free if you are buying an external drive from them.
Also, if I were you I'd buy an external Firewire 800 drive as well as the Time Capsule. I bought a 1TB Western Digital Mybook Studio Edition FW800 drive for around £100 and it is great - much faster than the TC for backups and more importantly restores. Whatever you do buy, get two and keep one backup off site (at a friend/parent's house perhaps) to guard against theft/fire/flood damage.
You need to get professional help to recover and please stop using your machine as you will be losing more data every minute the machine is running.
I do wish you luck,
Craig.
Sorry to hear of your situation - I've just read the thread.
Are you sure there is nobody nearby who has a Mac so that you could take your machine round, connect a firewire cable between the Mac's and then use target disk mode on your machine to let the other machine run data rescue? How about local Apple stores or resellers? They might even help you for free if you are buying an external drive from them.
Also, if I were you I'd buy an external Firewire 800 drive as well as the Time Capsule. I bought a 1TB Western Digital Mybook Studio Edition FW800 drive for around £100 and it is great - much faster than the TC for backups and more importantly restores. Whatever you do buy, get two and keep one backup off site (at a friend/parent's house perhaps) to guard against theft/fire/flood damage.
You need to get professional help to recover and please stop using your machine as you will be losing more data every minute the machine is running.
I do wish you luck,
Craig.
If he has tried to repair the clone then I wouldn't expect him to succeed as the clone will probably not contain deleted files. I think CCC is very clever and is capable of producing a very accurate clone but I don't think it copied data bit for bit from the drive at the lowest level - I think it just copies files/folders and metadata and then makes sure that permissions etc match. Normally this is exactly what you would want.
Thanks for good luck wish. There is no one around who has mac. and there is not even a shop who sells mac in my city, forget about mac support shop for help.
I was almost sure that CCC would not copy any deleted data to recover, just tried to make sure. ps, currently I'm working at a company and own freelance proejcts, and I have only this MBP, so no way to stop workign on it
I know I'm just making recovery even more not-possible as much as working on this. but no other way. boss, clients dont care about any problem, they want works done!! EDITED: even if I find a mac around luckily, would not it be problem for warranty to take HDD out, etc... ?
Just borrowed a 8GB Pendrive from a friend. Today as a last thing, I will try to install Mac OS to this pendrive and run Recovery from this pendrive. Hopefully it will work out!!! this is my last chance.
No need to take hard drive out - almost all Mac's have the ability to run in target disk mode. If you connect a Firewire cable between the Mac's and then boot your Mac up by holding down the T key it will go into target disk mode and will appear as if it is an external Firewire drive to the other Mac. You could then run your recovery software on the other Mac and recover data from your Mac's drive.
Here is another piece of recovery software:
http://subrosasoft.com/OSXSoftware/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1
It can be downloaded and has a "Trial Mode" where you can see what can be recovered before paying any money to actually do the recovery. It's only $10 or so anyway. It seems to suggest that you can run it on the internal drive but you must recover data to an external drive (eg. Pendrive) to avoid over-writing deleted files with the recovered files.
Apple even show this program on their downloads site which might be taken as a recommendation.
I hope this helps,
Craig.
Hi again,
I hope you've had some better luck with some of the suggestions I made earlier. Before I forget, I just wanted to offer some advice on how you need to secure your work in future.
Having no backup is madness as you now know but having a Time Capsule next to your computer and thinking you are safe is equally mad. In some ways this is worse because you will have a false sense of security like having a safety net with a tear in it. Fire, flood, theft & bad luck will all leave you without your data.
You need a combination of on-site AND off-site backups and you need to have a plan in mind as to how you might go about recovering from any one of the various disaster scenarios which might befall you. This is known in the IT business as disaster recovery, backups are just one part of it. Just having a backup is no good if you don't know how to efficiently recover especially when you consider that most disasters happen at the most inconvenient time when you have a deadline looming.
Time Machine is great and a massive step forward for personal computing but it is not a "complete" business-grade backup solution on it's own, whether you use it with Time Capsule or with an external USB/FW drive.
I can't tell you what the "perfect" backups solution is because it varies for everyone and changes through time but here are some elements you may wish to consider:
1. Use Time Machine but make sure you know how to configure it and do some tests where you create some dummy data and then delete it and then recover it. Be aware that Time Capsule will delete old backups automatically when it runs short of space so don't use it as an permanent archive. Also, don't be tempted to store data on the Time Capsule unless you have that data backed up elsewhere. Try to be clear what is "Primary Data" (ie. original working files) and what is "Backup Data" (ie. copies of Primary Data) and keep them separate.
2. Buy at least two (FW800 pref) external drives at least as big as your internal drive and use them to perform weekly (or at the very least monthly) bootable backups of your entire machine. You can use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper (or similar tools) for this job. This will give you a bootable backup of your system in the event that your internal disk fails or you have data corruption etc. Store one of these backups off site with a friend or relative or in a safety deposit box or even in the boot/trunk of your car. Just make sure it is out of your house. Consider security when you do this because you may have confidential information on the disk and/or intellectual property. Each week (or month), do a full bootable backup of your internal drive, take the backup drive to your safe location and bring back the other backup which will now be 1 week(or month) old. Wait for a week (or month) and repeat the process. Don't refresh the backup on the disk you brought back immediately because you may have lost data and not realised it yet and if you backup straight away then you will now have three drives all without your lost data. I hope you understand what I mean...
3. Use one of the online backup solutions such as Mozy.com or Apple's own MobileMe. I use MobileMe and have 20GB of space available (along with other features) which I can use for online backups of my most crucial files. The real beauty of using online backups is that you can reach them from anywhere you have an internet connection. The recovery process speed is slower than an external drive for sure but it can be setup and forgotten about pretty much and can really save you life at times. You don't have to do a full recovery if you are pushed for time - just recover the files you need right now.
4. Review your backup solution regularly (every year perhaps) and make changes to cover up any weaknesses you might have uncovered. Make sure you have a clear picture of your workflow to ensure that data is always stored in more than one place and replace backup drives after 3 years or so.
I hope the above is of interest to you (and others). No backup solution is perfect but the above will cover most of the disaster scenarios at a very low cost and will suit most individuals or small companies. Larger companies need more specific, tailored solutions which I'm not going to go into...
Kind regards,
Craig.
I hope you've had some better luck with some of the suggestions I made earlier. Before I forget, I just wanted to offer some advice on how you need to secure your work in future.
Having no backup is madness as you now know but having a Time Capsule next to your computer and thinking you are safe is equally mad. In some ways this is worse because you will have a false sense of security like having a safety net with a tear in it. Fire, flood, theft & bad luck will all leave you without your data.
You need a combination of on-site AND off-site backups and you need to have a plan in mind as to how you might go about recovering from any one of the various disaster scenarios which might befall you. This is known in the IT business as disaster recovery, backups are just one part of it. Just having a backup is no good if you don't know how to efficiently recover especially when you consider that most disasters happen at the most inconvenient time when you have a deadline looming.
Time Machine is great and a massive step forward for personal computing but it is not a "complete" business-grade backup solution on it's own, whether you use it with Time Capsule or with an external USB/FW drive.
I can't tell you what the "perfect" backups solution is because it varies for everyone and changes through time but here are some elements you may wish to consider:
1. Use Time Machine but make sure you know how to configure it and do some tests where you create some dummy data and then delete it and then recover it. Be aware that Time Capsule will delete old backups automatically when it runs short of space so don't use it as an permanent archive. Also, don't be tempted to store data on the Time Capsule unless you have that data backed up elsewhere. Try to be clear what is "Primary Data" (ie. original working files) and what is "Backup Data" (ie. copies of Primary Data) and keep them separate.
2. Buy at least two (FW800 pref) external drives at least as big as your internal drive and use them to perform weekly (or at the very least monthly) bootable backups of your entire machine. You can use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper (or similar tools) for this job. This will give you a bootable backup of your system in the event that your internal disk fails or you have data corruption etc. Store one of these backups off site with a friend or relative or in a safety deposit box or even in the boot/trunk of your car. Just make sure it is out of your house. Consider security when you do this because you may have confidential information on the disk and/or intellectual property. Each week (or month), do a full bootable backup of your internal drive, take the backup drive to your safe location and bring back the other backup which will now be 1 week(or month) old. Wait for a week (or month) and repeat the process. Don't refresh the backup on the disk you brought back immediately because you may have lost data and not realised it yet and if you backup straight away then you will now have three drives all without your lost data. I hope you understand what I mean...
3. Use one of the online backup solutions such as Mozy.com or Apple's own MobileMe. I use MobileMe and have 20GB of space available (along with other features) which I can use for online backups of my most crucial files. The real beauty of using online backups is that you can reach them from anywhere you have an internet connection. The recovery process speed is slower than an external drive for sure but it can be setup and forgotten about pretty much and can really save you life at times. You don't have to do a full recovery if you are pushed for time - just recover the files you need right now.
4. Review your backup solution regularly (every year perhaps) and make changes to cover up any weaknesses you might have uncovered. Make sure you have a clear picture of your workflow to ensure that data is always stored in more than one place and replace backup drives after 3 years or so.
I hope the above is of interest to you (and others). No backup solution is perfect but the above will cover most of the disaster scenarios at a very low cost and will suit most individuals or small companies. Larger companies need more specific, tailored solutions which I'm not going to go into...
Kind regards,
Craig.
for time machine, it says I need bigger size external hdd than my laptop's hdd. I have 500GB at my MBP. so, can't I use 500GB external hdd for time capsule? 1TB is too expensive for me
You don't seem to value your life very much.
$99.99 at www.amazon.com
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Nope, I wouldn't have expected it to have succeeded either, reassuring that somebody agrees!
Data recovery is always easier when you have access to another machine!
I've got a couple of old 40GB 2.5" hard drives lying around with OS X loaded on them as a "just in case of emergency" scenario arises! I use Time Machine too, but I usually can't be arsed having to deal with it backing up, so I'm more of a once every couple of weeks backup person.
Anyway, good luck OP - hope you do get your files back.
I've got a couple of old 40GB 2.5" hard drives lying around with OS X loaded on them as a "just in case of emergency" scenario arises! I use Time Machine too, but I usually can't be arsed having to deal with it backing up, so I'm more of a once every couple of weeks backup person.
Anyway, good luck OP - hope you do get your files back.
DAY 3: yes again no success!
thanks for giving time for such detailed posts @craig1410 . as you advised I tried FileSalvage. It took all night, and the result wasnt different than Data Rescue. no success. all i could find in recovered files is my current files. nothing from deleted or overwritten files.
I also installed macos to a pendrive, again no success. no booting up.
--------
@craig1410 thanks for your detailed post about backup ways. Currently I use Dropbox for my documents etc.. I could not use it for my work files cos of size problem. I actually was going to pay for bigger space and use for work files as well. so i will do it from now on for sure. I will also review MobileMe account. the sure thing is I will have a backup online!
I buy a Time Capsule. It will be for daily backup.
I also buy an external hdd and as you advise I will have weekly backup to that.
so as a result from now on. I will have 3 backups:
# daily (live): at internet (dropbox, mobileme, etc.)
# daily (live): Time Capsule
# weekly: external hdd
I got my lesson from a hard way!!
Thanks for all your guys' great support. I appreciate all you!!!
thanks for giving time for such detailed posts @craig1410 . as you advised I tried FileSalvage. It took all night, and the result wasnt different than Data Rescue. no success. all i could find in recovered files is my current files. nothing from deleted or overwritten files.
I also installed macos to a pendrive, again no success. no booting up.
--------
@craig1410 thanks for your detailed post about backup ways. Currently I use Dropbox for my documents etc.. I could not use it for my work files cos of size problem. I actually was going to pay for bigger space and use for work files as well. so i will do it from now on for sure. I will also review MobileMe account. the sure thing is I will have a backup online!
I buy a Time Capsule. It will be for daily backup.
I also buy an external hdd and as you advise I will have weekly backup to that.
so as a result from now on. I will have 3 backups:
# daily (live): at internet (dropbox, mobileme, etc.)
# daily (live): Time Capsule
# weekly: external hdd
I got my lesson from a hard way!!
Thanks for all your guys' great support. I appreciate all you!!!
Hi,
can I just double check - did you run FileSalvage against your MBP drive or against the CCC clone on the USB drive? It must be run against the internal MBP drive to have any chance of success. Note you can scan free space only on the drive to speed things up.
Finally, have you tried doing a spotlight search for some of your missing files just in case MAMP moved them somewhere? Longshot I know...
That's all I can think of to suggest to you other to keep working hard, learn from experience, stay optimistic and learn to laugh at adversity! Good luck!
Craig.
can I just double check - did you run FileSalvage against your MBP drive or against the CCC clone on the USB drive? It must be run against the internal MBP drive to have any chance of success. Note you can scan free space only on the drive to speed things up.
Finally, have you tried doing a spotlight search for some of your missing files just in case MAMP moved them somewhere? Longshot I know...
That's all I can think of to suggest to you other to keep working hard, learn from experience, stay optimistic and learn to laugh at adversity! Good luck!
Craig.
Wow... thats a lot of backing up. Speaking of which, I oughta backup all my stuff to my Gaming Rig, just incase. I'd hate to see what I'd do if I lost my music collection. I'd have to start importing all my CD's all over again.
1. I installed FileSalvage to my internal hdd, on my normal running macos. 2. I plugged my external hdd.
3. I run the FileSalvage app, clicked "Recover Deleted Files"
4. Selected Machintosh HD (internal hdd) as source...
5. Than clicked Undelete at the popup and chose external HDD as destination.
## so it scanned internal hdd and copied recovered files to external hdd.
-----------
I know excat names of my lost files, i reseached everywhere in restored files and all other places, but no result. they look gone! there is already smart content search as you guys know. no result.
I just came across this thread as well. CCC usually make a bootable clone ..CCC will try to do a block level copy instead of file copy if the hard disk capacity is same.
I am surprised CCC clone is not bootable. I used CCC to make a bootable copy of my HD several times.
I am surprised CCC clone is not bootable. I used CCC to make a bootable copy of my HD several times.
STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING! and take your backups NOW! never delay it, never think that "such things no happen to me, i take backup later, bla bla..." maybe in just next minute sth silly is gonna happen, and you will loose all your important files.! just take your backup now, dont delay it!!
just an advise from expreience
May well be irrelevant to you now, but I did stumble across something interesting in relation to making a mac recognise a volume as bootable reading a blog
It mentioned a bless command, so once you'd installed os x on the external volume try.
Haven't tried it, just wondered if it would have an effect.
It mentioned a bless command, so once you'd installed os x on the external volume try.
Code:
sudo bless verbose folder /Volumes/[I]externalVolumeName[/I]/System/Library/CoreServices bootinfoHaven't tried it, just wondered if it would have an effect.
Excuse me? The PAINFULLY OBVIOUS SOLUTION was to backup your CRAP to begin with. Don't insult me. Don't insult other EDUCATED computer users here. If you don't backup your stuff you are literally saying "I don't care what I lose". PERIOD. Gee, was that so HARD?
Ha! Like buy a damned backup drive and use time machine? I know that is so hard. And people wonder why there is an entire industry built around taking advantage of non-tech savvy people. Wow.
Are you sure you meant me with your glorious rant?
I was just asking you
after you did this
and later on I made a snide comment like this
I fail to see, what I did to insult you.
You made a one-word post, which was not helpful in any way, as it did not communicate clearly what you meant.
If you wanted to talk down on the original poster, you might have chosen a less transparent word for it.
And I wonder why you even participated, just to show us your ... ?
Have good day / night nonetheless.
Sorry, but after reading this I'm not quite sure what your agenda is in this thread.
It was made clear long ago (in times of this thread's existence), that the OP didn't know better (yeah, that happens), and now is wiser in this regard.
Just because YOU know, it is important to backup your virtual data, does not mean everybody knows or keeps in mind, how data is constructed and destroyed.
I hope you're not a information security manager though.
And I take back the good day, but you can keep the night.