Resolved Recovering deleted garageband songs after formatting

[Gensigo]

Hi all,

A friend of mine wanted me to reset his MacBook Pro before to sell it. I asked him what he wanted me to back up because everything was going to be deleted. I backed up everything he asked me and then I proceeded to reinstall Mac OSX 10.6. I formatted the hard drive before with the utility disk.

Once I finished he remembered he had a lot of songs on garageband which he didn't ask me to backup... Those songs are extremely important for him it they were only on his MacBook Pro. I tried to get them back with the data recovery software Data Rescue 3 but it is unsuccessful so far... I can't find anything.

All the data recovery software I found until now are talking about recovering data after deleting them from the trash but none of them said they are capable to retrieve them after formatting the hard drive.

Does anyone have any solution ?

 

[Tumbleweed666]

Does anyone have any solution ?

Dr Who maybe. Otherwise seems to me he is screwed.

Are you sure your friend was that concerned about his garageband files? He was very careless with soemthing so important, no time machine, no burn to CD, backups to memory stick, dropbox, icloud, and then he forgot about them! .

Whilst they are (were) only in one place they are always vulnerable. Loss, theft, mechanical failure, user error, the main user error being, no backups (and FWIW no big backup of the entire MBP before nuking whatever he "said" he wanted but I wouldn't emphasise that last point to him )

Most of us learn about the need for backups in this harsh sort of fashion.

 

[Fishrrman]

[[ All the data recovery software I found until now are talking about recovering data after deleting them from the trash but none of them said they are capable to retrieve them after formatting the hard drive. ]]

Important distinction to be made here.

When you re-initialized the drive, did you also choose the option to "zero out" the old data?

Normally, re-initializing just replaces the old directory with a new one.
The old data is left "intact" out on the drive's platters. It only gets over-written when new data is written to the drive.

However -- if you also chose to zero-out the old data, you took the extra step of over-writing EVERYTHING on the drive, including the data on the platters.

Data recovery software can get data back, IF you just re-initialized without zeroing the data.
It does this by "looking past" the directory (which was replaced), and by going "right to the platters" to scavenge for data. Then, it re-assembles the pieces it finds into files, and saves them to a scratch drive.

But if you zeroed everything out, there will be nothing for even data recovery software to "find" and scavenge.

The problem with your actions above is that you re-installed software after you re-initialized the drive. Chances are by doing this, you have over-written some of the old files, making them forever un-recoverable.

So -- might be too late now to get those files back.

One other thought -- if those Garageband projects really were that important, your friend should have had them backed up onto at least TWO drives.

Probably not much you can do now, except to pass this message on to him:
"Live, and learn".

 

[MeUnix]

You're more than likely out of luck. If the data recovering software isn't working out then take this as a life lesson.

Back-up important files frequently.

- Kyle

 

[Gensigo]

Dr Who maybe. Otherwise seems to me he is screwed.

Are you sure your friend was that concerned about his garageband files? He was very careless with soemthing so important, no time machine, no burn to CD, backups to memory stick, dropbox, icloud, and then he forgot about them! .

Whilst they are (were) only in one place they are always vulnerable. Loss, theft, mechanical failure, user error, the main user error being, no backups (and FWIW no big backup of the entire MBP before nuking whatever he "said" he wanted but I wouldn't emphasise that last point to him )

Most of us learn about the need for backups in this harsh sort of fashion.

That's what I thought also...

To answer to Fishrrman I did zero out the hard drive, that's why the data recovery software cannot find anything on the hard drive I guess.

Thank you everybody for your help.. I guess my friend should have told me before it's annoying me because he is putting me responsible for this.

 

[MeUnix]

Your friend should take responsibility for the GarageBand files being deleted. It's not your fault they didn't back up their "important" files before reseting the MacBook.

- Kyle

 

[Fishrrman]

[[ To answer to Fishrrman I did zero out the hard drive, that's why the data recovery software cannot find anything on the hard drive I guess. ]]

The files are gone.
They cannot be "recovered", since the data sectors have been wiped clean.

Even the best apps like DataRescue3 can't work in situations like this.

 

[Gensigo]

Ok thank you anyway for your help