Hey guys I accidently trashed my private folder and then emptied my trash. I have looked into it and everyone has answers on how to reinstall it if I didn't empty the trash but the issue is I did empty the trash. My computer won't start up all the way as you would imagine. I have my disk and everything but I do not have all of my things backed up or archived. My issue is I can easily reinstall Mac OS X 10.4 but I have some vital videos and footage for a video we are working on that I cannot deleted or take the chance of losing. Does anyone know a way I can back up the movie files or any way of doing anything of that sort? This is very important I do not have the tapes anymore with the raw footage on it so if I lose this footage pretty much our last year of work and filming is ruined and so is our release date in two weeks.
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Removed Private Folder and Need to Back up Movie Files
- Thread starter VX1KFilmer
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If you've emptied the trash, then to all intents and purposes, it's gone. You could possibly send your computer to a data recovery firm but it would be VERY expensive.
You sure? Is there anyway to reinstall just the private folder? Or something of that sort? The file with all the videos on it wasn't deleted so is there a way to use disk utility to back it up on an external hard drive even though the private folder is gone?
reinstall the private folder? How would that help - it has no personal info when it's first installed. "file with the videos was not deleted" - but where is it? If it was not under your personal folder it could be recovered.
Just boot to your install disc and do an "Archive and Install".
You won't lose any files or applications that way.
You won't lose any files or applications that way.
If you have put a file into the Trash and then emptied the Trash then you have basically lost that file. However, if you didn't empty the trash securely, then the file is still on your hard drive, but the computer no longer knows where it is. Data recovery firms can sometimes recover these files, however, it may have subsequently been overwritten when you save or created another file, so there is no guarentee that it will be found.
Consider this analogy. A letter arrives in the post. You read it and then throw it out with the rubbish(your Mac's Trash). You can still recover it. Your rubbish gets collected and taken to the landfill site(you empty your Mac's Trash). You can possibly still recover it but at great effort.
Consider this analogy. A letter arrives in the post. You read it and then throw it out with the rubbish(your Mac's Trash). You can still recover it. Your rubbish gets collected and taken to the landfill site(you empty your Mac's Trash). You can possibly still recover it but at great effort.
You may be able to take the hard disk out of the computer and mount it on another Mac with an enclosure, or if you have a firewire cable lying around and two Macs with Firewire ports, then you could try starting the broken Mac up in target disk mode and accessing it from the other Mac.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661