Un-delete files in OS X?

macvaultmacvault
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
My fiance accidentaly put the wrong folder in the trash on her iBook and then emptied the trash. I thought I'd be able to help her recover the stuff with something like TechTools but from what I'm reading I get the impression that it's very difficult to do in OS X. Does anyone know of a good product or way of doing this? Thanks.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Macvault

    My fiance accidentaly put the wrong folder in the trash on her iBook and then emptied the trash. I thought I'd be able to help her recover the stuff with something like TechTools but from what I'm reading I get the impression that it's very difficult to do in OS X. Does anyone know of a good product or way of doing this? Thanks.



    Yep. Data Rescue is the best approach to this.



    http://www.prosofteng.com/products/d...fa4630cfdaadf6



    You can run it for free; if it finds any files you have to buy it to have it recover them.



    In the meantime, the computer should NOT be used for anything.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    kwsanderskwsanders Posts: 327member
    I wish I had known about this right after I deleted my entire iPhoto library this past weekend. Luckily, I had backups, but it is good to know that something is available.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    lundylundy Posts: 4,466member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kwsanders

    I wish I had known about this right after I deleted my entire iPhoto library this past weekend. Luckily, I had backups, but it is good to know that something is available.



    Yes - on almost all file systems, when you "delete" a file, the system does not actually erase the data on disk - it just marks the space as "available" and takes the file's information out of the directory so it does not show up in the Finder.



    If another file is then saved, it may by sheer chance be assigned the "available" space, in whole or in part, that the "deleted" file just had marked as available.



    However, if the computer isn't used to save anything, a good recovery utility can simply mark the same space as "in use" again, and restore the info about the file to the directory.



    Point 1: if you really want something erased, use the Secure Empty Trash feature. Even this won't get by the FBI, but it will stump things like Data Rescue.



    Point 2: If data is trashed inadvertently, do not use that computer until you use it to launch the Data Rescue utility.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    dage007dage007 Posts: 320member
    for sure data rescue will work. I deleated a raid 5 unit, 500GB or so with 8 drives, and after a week 90% of the data was still rocoverable. I just purchased the new one I think it's version II and not X, seems to have even more features.
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