What is the best free, data recovery program?

Free? There aren't any good ones. Try Data Rescue III.

 

You can try PhotoRec

 

The file was fragmented. To fully recover a file it needs to be continuous on the hard drive. If the file was fragmented it was broken into pieces across the hard drive. The recovery program can't know this so would each piece as a different file as it no longer has a map to go off of.

There will probably be many files with a random letter/number combo for a name. Within these may be the missing parts of the video. While there may be some advanced forensic techniques to reconstitute the files. I think that would go beyond some forum advice to needing years of advanced training in data recovery.

You can try Nucleus Kernel Macintosh. It is by far the most thorough and robust data recovery I have used but requires Windows to run even though it recovers Mac volumes.

For OS X native try Stellar Phoenix. I didn't find it as good but it is definitely the best I know of for OS X.

I would not bother with Data Rescue or Disk Warrior. They will not do a deep scan of the hard drive. They also won't do a scan if the partition table was lost and won't try to plow through disk errors.

Also $70 to $100 for data recovery software is very cheap compared to professional.

Edit: I also hope you are recovering files to a different drive than that external you wiped and that you have not been adding any files to it. Otherwise that data will be mangled fast.

 

It is always good to remember, backups are almost always cheaper than data recovery

That said, good data recovery will cost you, so you have to weigh the cost of the value of the files vs. the value of your time and money to recover them

There are no easy or magical solutions to data recovery

You need to make sure you are not using the drive at all in any way
That will compromise your ability to recover even further

You have already been given some good suggestions
The question is, how much is it worth to you?

 

Data rescue 3

 

Data Rescue III has saved my a$$ a couple times. Good program.

 

I agree with velocityg4, Stellar Phoenix is better among all data recovery tools for Mac. There is no free software for data recovery in Mac. All softwares are free upto some extent, for complete recovery you need to pay. Stellar Phoenix also provide just free scan, recovery is paid.

 

Quoted for truth. Files without backups are TEMPORARY.

 

The best data recovery for a operating system upgrade is backup.

I highly recommend a botable clone made with either CCC or SuperDuper.

With the clone you can get right back to where you were immedately before you started the upgrade.

Pethum

 

Maybe your video is a little be long, or has been overwritten.

 

Disk Utility Accidental Erase

Hi there i have imac 27 i used disk erase by accident, thinking i was eraseing a card and not my 1tb hdd, is there anyway of getting the drive contents back, i used fast erase when i did it, urgent, Family pics on there...thanks in advance

 

Data Rescue III is your best choice. Don't use the drive in the meantime. And make backups next time.

 

Thanks for your advice, I hope it works, I'll post back soon as, I'm having an heart op in six hours, so I'm going to be busy, resting###