Data recovery of trashed files

I recently lost some data on a Hard Drive by inadvertently tossing a folder in a the trash and emptying it. ( there is no software for carelessness). My back up software just mirrored the affected drive and erased the data from the back up drive. I have turned the drive off and am now seeking a great utility for recover trashed data. I have used the demo version of Data Rescue II by Prosoft which indicated there might be some data to recover but want more information on data recovery software before I make the buy.
I am also looking for a good data recovery strategy in the event I find myself in this predicament again. Any thoughts out there.
G5 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

I find myself in the same predicament after deleting the trash and realising I had placed files in there by accident. Have you solved your problem yet?
I came across some free Quick Recovery for Mac software at http://3d2f.com/programs/30-815-quick-recovery-for-macintosh-download.shtml. Has anyone used this?

Similar Messages

Please Help - Recovery of trashed files

Hello there,
Could any one give me some directions as to how to try recovering deleted garage band files? My son emptied the trash (non-securely) and then called me.
Any Terminal commands or other possibilities? Any help will be SINCERELY appreciated.
Thanks a lot,
Jacobo

Jacobo:
I don't know what to tell you, other than that the trial version scan does the same full scan as the paid version does. The file type extensions for the GarageBand projects you had in the GarageBand folder are ".band" file types, if that helps with the searching.
To test, and maybe be able to help you out some, I just created a GarageBand project and then trashed it, emptying the trash. I then ran DR II (full version) and could not locate any file with a .band extension. I used the option to do a "deleted files" scan, which is included with the full version and scans the volume's free space where the trashed file would be located. I'm thinking that perhaps Data Rescue II might not pick up the .band file type even if the files actually are still there and not overwritten. I did locate hundreds of other files I had previously trashed/deleted over time. Invisible/hidden files were present in the mix.
Other than a very expensive alternative like DriveSavers recovery service, which may do the trick if the files are still there and not overwritten, you might be out of luck...
I have never heard of a way to do this using Terminal and have searched here to see if I could find anything...
Gary

Data recovery from Trash

I deleted some things that should not have been deleted fro the trash. They were just emptied, they were not securely deleted. What programs can you recommend that will recover these files? Also, Im new to macs, how can i restore files that are already in the trash so they will return to their original folders?

Hi Longmont man!
How important to you, are the files?
There is no free method, of recovering deleted files.
Review this Data Rescue II FAQ, and decide if it was purchasing Data Rescue II, is worth it.
ali b

I NEED HELP!!!! Data recovery of imovie files.

I have deleted one of my projects by mistake and im trying to recover it with data rescue 2. Im having problems with finding the correct files and i hope someone out there can help me with my problem.
Morten

Hi, where are these other files exactly?

Iphone data recovery from backup file

Hi,
My iphone 5 is damaged, I am forced to switch to Nokia N8 as the stop gap arrangement till iPone is repaired/replaced by the service centre. I have iPhone backup file on my computer. How do I recover data from backup file to restore it to Nokia N8.
Regards

The iTunes backup of an iPhone is stored in a format that is designed only for use in restoring to an iOS device. There are some 3rd party programs that will read and extract that data however. That would get you to the point of being able to see and use the data on your computer at least. I can't help with how you would then get the data to the Nokia but a Nokia forum might. One example of a backup extractor program that is reputable is http://www.wideanglesoftware.com/ibackupextractor/ but there may be others that are cheaper or free.

HELP ! Two SATA drives in an external enclosure RAID ZERO. Need data recovery.

What a nightmare !     My neighbor died from esophageal cancer and the funeral is in one week. He left behind a G5 2.5 DP tower with a dead motherboard, and he put the two 640 GB SATA drives in an Other World Computing external enclosure Mercury Elite Pro Dual) weeks before he expired. He got access to these drives in this enclosure. (External RAIDs are a no-no).
His grieving wife wants pictures extracted from the drives. There is no known back up and the G5 tower cannot be found.
When connecting the external enclosure by FW800 or USB3, the need to format flag pops up. Disk Utility shows one 1400 GB drive "unformatted".    The DIP switches on the enclosure are set to RAID 0.   Several data recovery programs find files, but of course any jpg over 50kb looks like venetian blinds, Tried Data Rescue 3, and the drive depicted as 1280 GB does not divide using expert features and the command key, thus a RAID SET for emulation cannot be formed. See here: See here: http://www.prosofteng.com/blog/recovering-data-from-a-apple-raid-using-data-resc ue-3-by-prosoft-engineering-2/
What to do now to recover jpg's intact and ASAP ?
1. Try another enclosure ?
2. Insert these drives into my personal G5 tower ?
3. Try different data recovery software ?
4. Which software other than Data Rescue will recover from two drives in one external enclosure believed to be RAID ZERO ?
Thank you.

Yes, if and when the tower can be located and retrieved.   In one communication it was described as a G4, in another, a G5.
Turns out that a single external drive was found, so suspect that is the boot drive. In the mean time, am doing an emulated recovery (two sets) using two converter boxes to isolate the two SATA drives, assuming RAID 0 and 32kb striped,   The two sets and because the drive order is unknown.   The first recovery is almost completed.
BTW, OWC rep stated that the two drives cannot be read in their dual SATA enclosure. The rep stated that the drives would have to be reformatted while in thier enclosure, then use. Tried two enclosures to see if they would read the drives independently, and one brand had a silly interface.   One has to put in two "dummy drives" (or ones in which the data is not important) and then convert the electronics (reset switch + power button) to RAID 0.

Any Tech Geeks out there ever done a DIY data recovery from a trashed drive

Hi,
I have a iMac G5 that went belly up about three weeks ago. The problem was undoubtedly the hard drive, which was totally missing even when I used third party recovery programs like Diskwarrior and Data Recovery. I pulled the drive and replaced it. BUT, now I am desperate to get things off the dead drive. I DID back up, but my delightful 2 year old "ate" my back up disks and they are beyond repair.
sigh
I simply don't have $300 to pay for professional data recovery and the missing data has sentimental value, but not much beyond that. I can't justify a price tag of $300 for old pictures and word documents.
Anyone ever done a DIY data recovery and can share the details with me??
I suspect the drive is physically damaged because it makes the ugliest noises when you try to power it up.
Tricia

You can purchase data recovery software such as Data Rescue II or File Salvage ( VersionTracker or MacUpdate ) and attempt to recover the files.
In order for recovery software to work the drive must be physically accessible and connected to your computer. Because you've removed it you would need an external enclosure for the drive (Firewire or USB.) However, if the drive is non-functional (won't run) then recovery software will not help.

Data recovery house tainted my Mac-only files: help!

I sent a failed ext. FW drive (clicking sound, wouldn’t mount) to a fairly-well-known data recovery specialist that advertised PC and Mac formats. The drive contained numerous Mac-only files, including Sound Designer II audio files (.sd2), Final Cut Pro (.fcp), and Digital Performer files (native, no suffix), to name a few.
After said specialist started working on the drive, it became frighteningly apparent that they were not up to speed on Mac systems. To make a long story short, after a couple of weeks I received a hard drive formatted FAT32, and every Mac-only file showed up in Finder as a Unix Executable file.
My first thought was they were using Windows-based software and had corrupted all my Mac-only files beyond repair. Forging ahead and knowing nothing about scripts, I used a 3rd party program called Super Get Info and was able to change the Type and Author of the Digital Performer files, and got them to open. So far, so good. But changing the Type and Author of the .sd2 files didn’t yield the same results; Finder sees the type, size, etc. but no audio program (DP, Peak, Jam) will open them.
Thinking I was screwed, I opened another project in DP that contained audio files which were still recognized in Finder as Unix Executables, and they played! I have no idea why this works---no other program will open them independently---but it shows if I can get an app to recognize them, they are still valid files.
Is there a way to dig deeper, besides just changing the Type and Author, to essentially get back all the header(?) information that was originally there in the .sd2 files (before the "data recovery") so an audio program can see that these are indeed valid files and legit to operate on? Something in Developer Tools, 3rd party, etc.?
Thanks,
Roger
G5 2.3gHz Dual Power Core Mac OS X (10.4.4) 2.5 GB RAM, multiple FW drives
G5 2.3gHz Dual Power Core Mac OS X (10.4.4) 2.5 GB RAM, multiple FW drives

Extern firewire drives often come formatted as FAT32 - so unless you reformatted it yourself that may have been the way it was. When Mactintosh files are saved to a FAT32 file system, the resource information is written to a file with a ._ added to the front of the file name. If you go to a terminal window and cd to your extern drive, "ls -A" will show if the resource information is there. For a file call "file.s2d", you should see a hidden file call "._file.s2d". Some utilites have trouble creating resource forks on FAT32 drives - so your utility may not be working. Try moving some of your files back to your main drive and correct the Creator and file type there - may be that will work.

FCP files will not open after data recovery

We have a TV tech lab in our high school of 15 Apple editing workstations and we archive the completed projects to external firewire drives. Well, wouldn't you know it, one of the drives crashed with all of the previous school years senior projects. The drive would mount, but none of the files were accessible. I sent the drive to a data recovery company and they were successful to a point. They were able to recover the entire drive (about 140 GB). The QT files work fine, but the FCP files are a different story. When I attempt to open an FCP file, I get the error "wrong file type". All of the files do have the correct file extension. Is there anyone out there that has experienced this? Were you able to resolve the problem? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jay in WI

Milwaukee, eh? My mom grew up in La Crosse...
Can you zip one or more of these files and email it to me? I'll take a crack at it.
Patrick

Quicktime Mov File size reduce after Data Recovery

Following a Data Recovery from Apple Care, most of my video files have been reduced to 120x90 pixels making them unwatchable. The Format is Apple Photo-JPEG, 120x90, Millions 16-bit Integer (Big Endian), Stereo, 48000 kHz with a Data Size of 15.16 MB. Other QT mov files bring up the following message "The movie could not be opened" "A necessary data reference could not be resolved"
Is there any way I can get the Dimensions back to 640x480 and can the necessary data reference be resolved.
My Quicktime Player is Version 7.6.4 (518.35)

Is there any way I can get the Dimensions back to 640x480 and can the necessary data reference be resolved.
Assuming the original data is in tact, the normal work flow would be to either reset/resize the movie's "Current Size" setting and re-save the file store the new setting using QT Pro or use QT Pro, an alternative QT application, or a third-part application to re-compress the file to the proper dimensions but this approach, depending on settings, can degrade the video. As to the missing "references," depending on the required "references," it might be possible to re-link/restore things if you know enough about the file structure (which I don't).

Time Machine drive files after data recovery.....permissions problem?

Client had a hard drive crash, and then turned out her Time Machine drive was bad. We ran a data recovery on the Time Machine drive, which produced about 40GB of disk images...12 in all. There is a very promising image which shows the user folders, and we can click on hers and see her folders. BUT...when we try to open Documents, we get a message that
"Item "Documents" is in use by Mac OS X and cannot be opened"
Would there be an override of permissions or some such available to take a peek inside and hopefully pull files?
Thanks to all in advance.

A general look at backup files......

I just used stellar phoenix mac data recovery and it seemed to work but now my files won't open. Even though they are "jpeg, mov" files the error message is could not be opened. The movie's file format isn't recognized. " Any help or are they corrupted

I just used stellar phoenix mac data recovery and it seemed to work but now my files won't open. Even though they are "jpeg, mov" files, the error message is "could not be opened". The movie's file format isn't recognized. " Any help or are they corrupted?

Sounds to me like the file is probably corrupt. If you had hard drive corruption or damage, that could easily result in recovered files not being fully intact. If you were trying to recover accidentally deleted files, it's possible they might have been partially overwritten before recovering. There are never any guarantees with file recovery.
Without more information on the circumstances that led you to try recovery, it's hard to give advice on what to try from here. You could always try another file recovery tool, like Data Rescue 3. Just be sure you're taking appropriate precautions when doing recovery. See Recovering deleted files.

Opening a data recovery file

does anyone know how to open a indesign data recovery file? when i try to open the recoveryData file an alert pops up, that says: "file format not supported, ind-module is missing or already in use by other proces"
thanks

You cannot open the recovery files manually. they are only good when ID restarts an opens them automatically.

Data recovery - HELP!

Hi there
I have done the stupidest thing EVER! I back up my entire MacBook on an external hard drive - so far, so sensible. Only I've updated what I've backed up by replacing folders with newer versions and I've only just realised. I've lost four years' worth of digital photos and I'm praying there's some way of recovering them. Please help me! I'll name my future children after you and put you in my will!
Here's what I've done in full:
- I upload all my photos to iPhoto, edit them and then save them into a folder within a folder on my desktop
- I started getting very low on operating memory so I got an external hard drive with a fire wire and began backing everything up. I took all my photos in the Photos folder off my desktop altogether and trashed them, so I had more operating memory.
- I did this in May/June
- I also had photos from 2004/2005/2006 on there which were from before I had a Mac and uploaded to iPhoto
- I've since overwritten this folder with a new (thus virtually empty with only a few recent photos) version and I think I've done it twice since I originally backed everything up, but I've only just realised I've been overwriting everything.
- I've looked in that iPhoto library in Pictures that I have and I can recover some photos, but there appears to be a lot missing and because I'm a keen photographer who is anal about editing and organising (the irony!) my photos, they're all mixed up - which is why I had them in separate folders in the first place
Is there ANYTHING I can do?
Can they be recovered from the hard drive itself?
Is there software that can be downloaded free or paid for to do this?
I've googled it a bit and it looks like there's stuff you can download for a PC. I have access to a PC, so I can have a go on that if that's what it takes.
If they can't be salvaged from the hard drive, will I perhaps be able to find them in a secret place on my MacBook from the time I trashed the original folders a couple of months ago? 'Secret place' is about as technical as I get!
I can't get an appointment at the Genius Bar for a while. Any help on this would be much appreciated. I know I'm an idiot - but I was half way to being a non-idiot by backing up in the first place...so small victories...!
Thanks,
Rachael

Basics of File Recovery
If you simply put files in the Trash you can restore them by opening the Trash (left-click on the Trash icon) and drag the files from the Trash to your Desktop or other desired location. OS X also provides a short-cut to undo the last item moved to the Trash -press COMMAND-Z.
If you empty the Trash the files are gone. If a program does an immediate delete rather than moving files to the Trash, then the files are gone. Recovery is possible but you must not allow any additional writes to the hard drive - shut it down. When files are deleted only the directory entries, not the files themselves, is modified. The space occupied by the files has been returned to the system as available for storage, but the files are still on the drive. Writing to the drive will then eventually overwrite the space once occupied by the deleted files in which case the files are lost permanently. Also if you save a file over an existing file of the same name, then the old file is overwritten and cannot be recovered.
If you stop using the drive it's possible to recover deleted files that have not been overwritten by using recovery software such as Data Rescue II, File Salvage or TechTool Pro. Each of the preceding come on bootable CDs to enable usage without risk of writing more data to the hard drive.
The longer the hard drive remains in use and data are written to it, the greater the risk your deleted files will be overwritten.
Also visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on Data Recovery.
Since it sounds like you overwrote files and folders then the data that were overwritten are gone for good and can not be recovered.
In the future you should make multiple backups including an archival backup on DVD media that can be stored away safely. It's good that you have some backups, but your backup plan is obviously inadequate.

Mail Crashed - Inbox Deleted - Trying Data Recovery - Help

I am running a G4 Powerbook 10.3.9 and Mail 1.3.11 locked up and crashed. My old Inbox is wiped out. Last July, I accidentally deleted my Sent emails but that was intentional (as in I thought I was in the Trash window, selected All and Deleted but as I was in my Sent window, that's what got deleted). I bought Data Rescue II and was able to restore almost all of my deleted Sent email.
So I tried to do the same today. I recovered large "mail" files to the CBR folder. These files are marked as Mail-00034.mbox where the number goes up. Some files are 100MB while others are smaller. I also recovered the INBOX.mbox file but I cannot import either file type into Mail (as in the Import Mailbox function).
I have recovered plenty of big files but none that can be imported into mail. Any thoughts. Thanks in advance

The current INBOX.mbox contents include
content_index 128K
Info.plist 4K
mbox 236K
mbox.SKindex 30.3MB
mbox.SKindex.isValid 0K
tableofcontents 4K
The file size of the mbox.SKindex does not make complete sense as I have only about a dozen or so emails currently in my INBOX (those received after the crash). Either way, the entire INBOX file is way too small (compared with a 1.2G SENT box). I believe the INBOX file size was around 900MB prior to the crash.
As for what the Data Recovery II program found, it recovered a folder called CBR and in it is a folder called Mail, and in that a folder called AppleMail, and in that about 120 files (using the mailbox icon) all labeled "Mail-######.mbox" where the ###### refers to 00001 (the first file) up to 00120 (the last file). File sizes vary from several at 100MB down to 1MB. There is a great deal of data there. When I try and import these files into Mail, the import seems to work but the IMPORT folder is empty.
Data Recovery also got a INBOX.mbox file that when opened, is blank. It too reads as 30.3MB (vs. the 30.7MB INBOX.mbox file noted above). When this is opened, there are 0 emails in it.

Data recovery of trashed files

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