Lost Files .. What a disaster

Hoping someone can help .. I will try to keep this brief ~
} I installed iTunes ages ago and just realised it was storing everything on my 'C' drive which ended up being full
} Tried to move my iTunes file from the 'C' drive to an external drive I had bought (a WD 320GB Passport)
} All looked OK and so I deleted the file on my 'C' drive
} Now found all the films/TV shows i had purchased have vanished
} When I try to sync, it says it wants to sync to another library (the old one I am guessing)
} I uploaded everything that was left on the iTouch but it didnt upload the CDs I had loaded
Can anyone help .. I most concerned with two thing ~
} How do I recover the films/TV shows I have purchased (in excess of £300 worth)
} How do I remove the problem of syncing
Thanks,
WOODY

Welcome to AD!
+Tried to move my iTunes file from the 'C' drive to an external drive I had bought+
Surely you mean you moved the entire itunes folder, and not just one file?
If you moved the iTunes folder, it's all there on your exHD.

Similar Messages

I replaced my hard drive and I backed up my files on an external hard drive but when I reloaded my iweb to my imac none of my files were on it so I can't make changes to my Published web site have I lost my files what can I do

I replaced my hard drive and I backed up my files on an external hard drive but when I reloaded my iweb to my imac none of my files were on it so I can't make changes to my Published web site have I lost my files what can I do

By default iWeb keeps its data in (user)/Library/Application Support/iWeb in a file named Domain. Without this file you cannot proceed (other than by recreating the site from scratch using the published version as a reference) so you need to locate it on the original disk.
To confuse matters, Apple have hidden the user’s Library folder in Lion and Mountain Lion to casual viewers, in an attempt to stop new Mac users messing their machines up. To access it, in the Finder go to the ‘Go’ menu and hold down the Option (Alt) key; the Library folder will appear as a choice.

What is going on with Lion???? Something has happened to my Mac Pro since I got Lion! I cannot save documents in Word and as a consequence have lost files....God knows where they are!!! HELP!

What is going on with Lion??? Something has happened to my Mac Pro since I got Lion! I cannot save documents in Word, or at least if I do I have no idea where they are after I save then, Word does not know either! I have never seen this before? As a conseqience I have lost files despite saving them in the usual way......God knows where they are! In the middle of all this I am suddenly asked for my Mobile Me password,,,,,in Word??? What is going on? Help!

Update to latest patched version that no longer relies on Rosetta and PowerPC
Visit www.RoaringApps.com for a list and table of what version is supported, can be updated and which are not.
A year ago this was news.
Hopefully people kept a boot drive with the old OS so they could dual boot for a month or two whiile sorting out the changes and updates.

I accidentally formatted my portable hard drive when setting it up for time machine. Is there any way for me to get back my lost files?

I have an external hard drive of the brand Western Digital.
Before I got my iMac I moved a lot of my important files from my PC to the hard drive and today I went on and connected it to my iMac to move my files over to it.
When it had connected a window popped up that asked if I wanted to use this hard drive with the program Time Machine and create backups. Without thinking it trough enough and reading the warning properly (I'm stupid I know) I clicked "yes". I then realised how stupid it was and cancelled the formatting of the hard drive. But somehow the program still managed to delete all my important files and can't find any way to get them back. Neither can I connect the hard drive to my PC anymore so I can't check if the files are still there (which I doubt they are since I can't see them on my iMac either).
And now I wonder: is there any way for me to get back my lost files or are they lost forever?
Thank you in advance!
//Gina

A data recovery specialist or some data recovery programs should be able to help. Most format simply rewrite the directory tree saying no files are on this disk. The bits that represent the files are still flipped appropreiately so they still exists, you just don't have the location info to get at them. Secure formats and erases rewrite each bit to a zero or 1 or random so the data is then truely gone. This type of format takes a long time to complete.
I'm not making a recomendation of a particular program but here is one company that does what you ask:
http://www.remosoftware.com/mac-recovery The cost is pretty high but I'm sure they don't sell many copies and need to cover their development costs.
Good luck and don't write anything on the freshly formatted disk until you decide what to do.

External Drive Partition, Lost Files

As the title suggests, I made a mistake that "erased" all my files on a backup external hard drive, after splitting a partition in two and installing Mac OS X Leopard on the new partition. I use quotes in "erased" because the data itself is still there, but the access to it isn't anymore. Before thinking about using recovery software and going through the harsh process of churning through hundreds of GB of data to recover files that could be corrupted in the end, I wanted to seek the opinions of more knowledgeable people to see if there are alternative solutions that could be more simple.
Here's my situation and all the steps that lead to my current state. I have a iMac with Core 2 Duo Intel processor, 2.66 GHz, 2 GB of RAM and an internal hard drive of 320 GB, with Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.8) installed. For backup and temporary transfer of files, I use an external USB hard drive, a Seagate FreeAgent with 500 GB (500 billion bytes = 465 GB actually).
I wanted to boot from my external hard drive to do some maintenance on my iMac's hard drive. So I used Disk Utility to split the current partition (the only one) on my external drive. The drive had 465 GB, give or take, with approximately 50GB free. The other partition to be created was 10GB. I know this is the kind of delicate operation that should be done with caution, but Disk Utility was saying explicitly that "this partition will not be erased", refering to the big partition that will become approximately 455 GB, the one that contains all my files. I say to myself, okay, that is safe.
Now, here comes the thing that I'm not 100% sure about. At this point, I don't know if the big partition was already erased. Both partitions (455GB and 10GB) always mounted on the desktop just fine. I was probably just "presuming" that everything went fine.
Then I proceeded to install Mac OS X Leopard from the installation DVD on the small 10GB partition, which went fine. It's only at this moment that I realised that my big partition was empty. Shortly after, I set the permissions of the big partition to read-only, assuming it would minimize further damage.
That's about it. At this point, my first thought was, what exactly just happened? In my mind, playing with one partition should not affect the other ones, but apparently, something did anyway, for a reason that is beyond my knowledge. Right now, I'm still wondering what operation did do the damage, the partition split or the installation of Mac OS X? Why would any of these operations erase the big partition?
And here's another important point to ponder. Before the partition split, my external hard drive was formatted as APM, Apple Partition Map. After the split, or after the Mac OS X installation (which one, I don't know), the partition scheme had changed to GUID. Maybe this is the key to solve the problem.
I know that my data is still intact, at least in most part, and I know that the file structure (B-Tree information, and stuff like that) seems to be intact (completely or partially) as well, because I visualized some sectors of my drive with a tool called iBored, and I recognized some folder and file names.
That's all the details I can provide. Right now, I feel like any low-level operation on my external drive is like defusing a bomb. One little mistake, and boom! So I prefer to do nothing until I can get some advice from others.
Thank you for your help!

I had the EXACT same issue last night.
Today, I downloaded Disk Drill and it is scanning and recovering my lost files from my external hard drive.
http://www.cleverfiles.com/partition-recovery.html
I thought I was going to have a heart attack when none of my files showed up on my Finder and I did not have a clue what I was going to do as my hard drive has practically my whole life on there!
As we speak, disk drill is in the process of scanning my hard drive and locating lost files.
Next step is to recover the files..
Estimated Time Remaining: 3h 20m
I will let you know if this was fully successful. It looks like it wil be though so I say you do what I'm doing and start recovering!

Dups, sharing problems and lost files on NAS drive

I have been trying ot set up a "shared library" on a network storage drive. The process has been painful to say the least I have over 17k music files and 400+ audio books.
My first problem was creating duplicate files when pointing a new PC to iTunes media files. After trying multiple 3rd party software product unsucessfullly I finally bite the bullet and used the iTunes feature display duplicates feature. Because I did not want to delete compliations and greatest hits dups I had to browse dups by album and manally sort through over 7,000 songs. Took me a week to complet but I did it. The larger problem I am now facing is lost files.
I sucessfully had both compurter pointed to the same media folder and everything was working great until I accidentally selected all of my file (yes 17,000+) and proceeded to delete them. I was trying to deleted all of the songs in a album that was duplicates... I caught my error only after a few secs but I am afraid the damage is done. The weird part is the songs are still in the library in iTunes but I now have close to 5,000 missing files icons and when I look for the files in the album folder, they are missing. What is more irritating is not every song from every album is missing. so If I reimport from the original cd (I hope they are not too scratched) it creates dups of the file that are already there and I have go through and do a manual dup clean up again!!!
Anyone have a thought as to where the missing files are (they are not in the trash under deleted files).
Anyone know of a better way to share a large library between mutliple computers and iOS devices without haveing to have multiple copies to sync(i.e. Home sharing).
ANY HELP WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!

Hi Rajnish,
As you mentioned "quota limit", it is set via FSRM or specific function on NAS?
Meanwhile could you confirm the number 185GB is accurate? Sometimes a part of used space is just not calculated. You can confirm with checking the total space on NAS locally.
If the number is correct and quota is set via FSRM, check if it is the Disk Quota which not re-calculated the released space. Try to clear the Quota setting and reconfig with 300GB limitation and see if issue still exists.
If you have any feedback on our support, please send to [email protected]

Photoshop CS5 has lost file associations

I recently installed both Photoshop and Dreamweaver CS5, deleting the CS4 versions after installation. I have lost file associations for all Photoshop-related files: eg jpg, tiff, gif and so forth, and the psd extension as vanished altogether. (That means that if you click on a .jpg file, it opens in a free MS utility like Paintshop rather than where you want it to go: in this instance, to Photoshop.)
I have taken the following measures, none of which have worked:
Manually altered the associations in Folder Options. I can browse to photoshop.exe, but nothing happens when I select it.
I have gone into the registry and deleted all associations under the relevant file types, eg .jpg etc. Restarting folder options replaces them exactly as they were, and I still cannot associate anything with Photoshop.
I have run Photoshop from the command prompt with the tag /regserver which ought to re-register it. Nothing happens. (If you want to try this, open the Start > Run box, browse to the .exe file and append (separated by a space) /regserver
I have changed and saved all file associations in the Bridge Options section. They are still there after I restart Bridge, but it has no effect on the overall file associations.
So that leaves me stuck. Both CS5 programs are registered in the program list, and both appear in the Start menu list of programs. Neither appear in the Folder Options list. I am running on XP Pro with today's (16 Sept 2010) MS updates. Can anyone help with this?

Solution
I have found how to fix this, for me at least and on an XP machine. Some users may find the procedure a bit unnerving. You should anyway back up your registry before making these changes.
Start > Run > regedit
Go to:
HKCurrentUser\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts
That will give you a long list of file extensions: ex .jpg, .png
Scroll down to and select the relevant ones, one by one. This is moderately laborious, but what follows is repeated exactly. (I found the .tiff extension was slightly different and left it alone. I never use tiffs so I don't know if it works unchanged.)
When you click on the + box for e.g. .jpg, two 'folders' open. These are
OpenWithList
This sets the list of potential programs to use for this extension, lettered a,b,c etc.The last entry in the 'folder' is MRUList which sets the priority order for these programs, eg if it has 'bcade' then program 'b' is first, 'c' is second etc. You can edit this order by clicking on it.)
OpenWithProgIds
This stores what kind of image this is. Under .jpg I found that I had 'jpefile' and something like Photoshop.9 (I don't recall exactly.) This refers to a very old version of Photoshop, certainly not the last one on this machine. All the other relevant image files had much the same terms associated with them. Some had four or five older Photoshop references: you can delete these entirely by right clicking on them. You then right click on the remaining Photoshop reference and alter it to read Photoshop.Image.12 Do not change the identity entry, e.g. the term 'jpefile', as mentioned above.
It is also worth navigating back up to
HKCurrentUser\Software\Adobe\Photoshop
I found that I had reference to five separate versions of Photoshop. You can delete all but (numerically below) the 12.0 folder.
Close regedit and reboot. You will find that Folder associations now recognise Photoshop as a valid program and assign it to the files that you have changed. I have not tried adding to the list in Explorer > Folder associations.
This is pretty shameful, frankly. Adobe's installation program should clean out all preceding registry entries when it de-installs a version. It should most certainly write Photoshop12 refereces when installing. This must be a pretty geenral problem.

I accidentally deleted an Application on my iphone 5 and with it lost important files. How do i get back these files. The last iphone backup sync was after this so I cant even access an older back up as I cannot find them. How do I get back my Lost files.

I accidentally deleted an Application on my iphone 5 and with it lost important files. How do i get back these files. The last iphone backup sync was after this so I cant even access an older back up as I cannot find them. How do I get back my Lost files.

On your iMac launch iTunes and at the top next to the Apple symbol click iTunes > Preferences > Devices and tell me what you see. You last sync should be there showing only a device name. If you have an older backup it will be there as well the difference is it will be the device name with a date and time stamp. Sync and backups are two different things and there is a chance iTunes made a backup the first time you hooked up your iPhone 5.

Does anybody know about computer forensic for lost files on MacBook Air?

Hi there! Could you please suggest how to recover lost files from my external drive and my MacBook Air laptop?
By the way, it was not my fault. This is what they did it to my MacBook in the Perth city Apple store.

Data Rescue 3: http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

Finding lost files in LR

Hi,
I have over 100 000 lost files in my LR catalogue. It's the result of several hard drive and OS upgrades. I understand how to do it one at a time but I have just way too many to move.
What are my options?
Thanks,
Marty

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr2_find_folder/find-folder.htm

Creatively Lost Files

Okay, here are two separate problems, one of my making and one who knows? First, I have two new G drives with a scratch disk. Two hundred photos in 9 files are now listed as "Adobe Camera Raw" in my Scratch Disk and not available (?). They are not listed in my Main external that I can find. The one of my making is that I tried stupidly to move a folder creatively with the drag the whole folder and insert in between two other dates to get it into the correct date. So the files merged. Later machinations resulted in the proverbial (?). So some of the photos now have the new date and while I can locate them in Finder, I can't for the life of me disentangle my creatively made mess, nor are they usable. By the by, I did just a couple of days ago download Lt.Rm 3.6. Would that have anything to do with the "Adobe Camera Raw" problem?

What do you mean by "lost files"?

Help Required - Ran "Repair Permissions" and lost files

I was having a few unknown errors with my computer lately... (iBook G4, Purchased November, 2005) I was unable to print, OS 9 was not loading, and everything was really slow.
When looking around in my computer (Only been using a Mac as long as I have had this computer), I found the disk utility and figured that would be a good place to start. After running the "Repair Permissions", I was pleased to see my computer was running quicker, and my programs were opening properly.
Now...The problem....
I used to have a fairly cluttered desktop...and as of a few weeks ago, I took everything, and put it into a new folder in the Hard Drive. After the Repair was finished, I found that particular folder was deleted. My Trash was still empty, and when searching for that folder, sub folders, and programs there, they were no where to be found. Also, it appears it was only this folder (It was called Main Directory if that helps at all) that was deleted.
I have noticed, that a few of the programs deleted do have files in the "Cache" folder....But I don't know what good that does me.
Any help in recovering these lost files would be greatly appreciated
PS. Yes....I have learned now not to poke around and run utilities that I don't know what they really do...at least without backing up my hard drive.

I'm sorry.....I made a mistake...I got the computer 2004.

A Desperate Search for a Lost File

i fear that all hope is lost, as it probably is, but i thought i'd post here as a last resort.
basically, i recently formatted my macbook pro's HDD to dual install OS X and a certain Linux distribution (which, as it turns out, was not necessary - but alas).
i backed up everything i needed except for a 10MB AES encrypted .dmg file that i had stupidly hid away.
before i realized that it was gone, i went ahead and installed both operating systems on the formatted drive, along with many gigabytes of software (as of this writing i've used 64GB on my OS X partition alone). the total capacity is ~186GB in base 2.
i've tried filesalvage and data rescue III - filesalvage does not seem to support .dmg files, and data rescue found five disk images, two of which were unmountable (and probably too small to be what i was looking for -- less than 100KB) and one was around 93GB.
could these results in fact contain what i'm looking for, but be corrupted and/or end in the wrong place on disk (particularly in the case of the 93GB image) because of overwriting etc? is there a way, knowing some of the contents of the single Word document in my lost disk image as well as the password, to probe the drive for something resembling its data? until i find an auxiliary drive that can hold 93GB, i cannot examine the 93GB disk image because data rescue insists that i not modify the salvage drive.
i'd be willing to go to great pains in an attempt to find this file (i.e., write my own program to search the device for suitable patterns if anyone knows how i might go about doing that), so any suggestions are welcome.
P.S.: i post this in the unix section because i'm not sure where else to put it; feel free to move it

i suppose i am still in the denial stage of grieving. is there no chance that the disk image exists in the remaining free space of the drive? i mean, if i've only written over roughly a half of the drive's capacity, there should then be a roughly 50% chance that part of the data is there, right?
couldn't one of those anomalous disk images be the beginning of my lost file?
i really just don't want to accept this loss right now. is there absolutely nothing to be done about this lost file?

HT1423 after power interruption -all my folders went back with 3 years dates, jow do i return lost files?

after power interruption -all my folders went back with 3 years dates, How do i return lost files?

Malachi1234 wrote:
all my folders went back with 3 years dates
On what exactly? Your computer?
Do you have a backup off the machine that's stable?
Now your files are still likely there, it's just a naming issue or a PRAM/SMC problem for power and a cache corruption issue for the files.
If you don't have a backup of your files, copy everything you can to a external storage drive and disconnect it.
Next run trhough this list of fixes, I suspect the SMC/PRAM reset will help with the power issues and the #12 OnyX cache cleaning routine will set your folders right.
Remmeber after the PRAM reset to set your time and date correctly. Pehaps that is what s throwing off the date on the folders?
It's really hard to figure your problem out with the information provided.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3353
Again your files are likely very much still on the drive, you can recvoer anything as long as it hasn't be secure erased or overwritten by new data yet
Create a data recovery, undelete boot drive

Lost files (not the usual)

I've had Lightroom for a few months now and have some 17,000 images loaded through it from an external hard drive and have done extensive work on at least 2,000 of these images.
Today I turn on Lightroom(latest version) and the folder section on left side of window shows a TOTAL of 300 images. These are the most recent images I've downloaded. There are no folders and subfolders shown with the ? shown....just the 2 folders with these images in them.
My files are still on my hard drive but do not show up in Lightroom. All tutorials and Q&A about this (lost files) always refers to the ? being by the folders in Lightroom. My numerous folders and sub-folders are not even showing up. I hope this can be resolved without me loading some 17,000 images back into Lightroom. and what about all the Lightroom changes I've made to them?
Any help on this would be greatly appreciated
Thanks
Ed

Ed,
From your post, it sounds like you didn't understand what Paige was asking. He wasn't talking about folders.
Lightroom's catalogue is a file like any other, and it's possible that you have created a second one, into which you imported those 300 images.
Try this menu command and see if it lists a second catalogue:
If it does, click on it and see if your previous images are there.
Hal

Lost files by overwriting folder

Help PLEASE!
I made a stupid mistake and tried to back up a folder with some images by copying my Pictures folder from the PowerBook to an external firewire hard drive. I had a Picture folder there already with some subfolders. Unfortunately the folder structure on the ext drive had some folders which I had created there earlier but are not in the Pictures folder on the PowerBook. Too late I realised that by copying the newer Pictures folder over the one on the ext drive I deleted the subfolders that do not exist anymore on the PowerBook.
I am now hoping that some of the files in those subfolders still exist in some form and I will be able to recover them. I don't know how though. I would be very grateful for any help I could get with this...please!!
Many thanks!
PowerBook Mac OS X (10.2.x)

Hi, K. Download the demo version of one or more of the following data recovery utilities:
Data Rescue II
FileSalvage
VirtualLab
The demo version of each program will show you what files the full, paid-for version would be able to recover from your hard drive. If you like what you see, buy and use the full version.
Any of these programs will require that you have a second hard drive to which the recovered files can be saved as you recover them. In your case, that can be your internal HD, provided there's enough room on it. You'll want to install the data recovery software on the internal HD, boot to that drive, and use the recovery software to inspect the external drive for recoverable files. Any files you decide you want to recover will be saved on the internal drive, to avoid overwriting anything more on the external drive.
To be recoverable, the "lost" files on the external drive must not actually have been overwritten. If the new Pictures folder actually occupies the same addresses on the external drive as the old Pictures folder did, then the files have literally been overwritten and are gone forever. But that may not be the case: if the new folder was written to a different part of the drive, and only the directory entry for the old folder has been removed, the files may be recoverable. There's no way for you to tell where on the drive the files were written except by trying to recover them.
Be aware that everything that has been or will be written to the drive after the Pictures folder was replaced has the potential to overwrite files that you may want to recover. So it's very important that you STOP using the external drive at all until you've recovered whatever you need from it, or determined that your files aren't recoverable.
Good luck.

Lost Files .. What a disaster

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for