Recovery, and a potentially huge OSX bug?

[0098386]

I posted this in the photography thread but I think it's escalated now. And here's the events to the day;

-Use Mac with Microdrive plugged into card reader.
-Eject Microdrive. Put system to sleep. Stick drive in camera.

-Take lotsa photos! 1.5gb's worth, infact. Power had been switched off multiple times and could view photos on the LCD.

-Get back. Mac in sleep. Stick Microdrive into card reader, press power button to wake up Mac. Look at the drive (iPhoto didn't pop up) and see ALL the pictures taken since ejecting the drive have vanished. Completely.

Funny thing is the drive is still seeing that 1.5gb being used up. Yet, I see a jump in the folders on the drive, ie. Canon1, Canon2, Canon3, Canon8. All except for Canon8 have pictures inside. I see the same on Windows too.


Any recommendations here, I'm thinking about trying out a demo of File Buddy. Just I hear that can see files. And because the drive is a Fat32 I'm going to run it through a recovery program my dad has on his PC. As soon as that machine is free like. Any OSX application suggestions? or tips?
I'm determined to get these photos back. 5 hours of adventure photos on a beautiful summer day.

 

[mkrishnan]

So I take it that in the camera, too, the files are not visible?

And the folders were not there before? Are all of the pictures in them, or just some? Can you copy them all out of the folders manually? Have you tried examining the card contents in terminal?

It doesn't help, but as far as bugs go, I think this is not one. In Windows and on OS X, you are supposed to eject flash drives and the like (and I think this qualifies as the like) before you remove them. I think there's a good likelihood this could screw one up on Windows also. But I could be wrong.

 

[0098386]

OH £$%£$!!!

before I start. I always eject hardware. but the plot thickens.

I emptied the Trash bin before, and have just replugged in my Microdrive again. It's now saying I HAVE the free space after all! My guess is they somehow ended up in my Trash bin when I plugged the device in, perhaps it thought that because them files weren't in there before the sleep, and the machine thinks that nothing has been changed, that they never existed or should be moved to the bin?

So! HOW CAN I RECOVER FILES FROM TRASH?! I have a feeling theres a time limit to this, or until the data is rewritten over. HELP!

 

[0098386]

Yet another update; I've tried demo versions of a couple of recovery applications with no avail. yet they found images from weeks back? I am very lost and confused with all of this really. OSX magically deleting my images, vanishing files from the camera's Microdrive. Recovery software bringing back a 25*25 pixel image of a photo I took today though, which I suppose is something.

This has taught me a lesson though. always shut down your damn computer before playing around with images. I could have lost some one off images today. Thank god I can take them again.

 

[Counterfit]

In the future, it would probably be a good idea to wake it, then plug in the drive.