OSX: Is it possible to recover something deleted from the trash?

November 17, 2004 12:01 AM

OSX: Is it possible to recover something that was deleted from the trash? Please.
posted by dobbs to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Funny, I was just looking into this last week.

I was told by my friends at Apple that Norton Utilities is really "the" option, and that it's not very good, because Apple is based on Unix.

There's also File Salvage, which only recovers a few types of data files, but has the benefit that it's available for a free trial. Haven't used this, have no idea if it works or even whether or not it's a Trojan/malware, so caveat downloador.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:23 AM on November 17, 2004

Response by poster: Thanks, ikkyu2. I downloaded it but it doesn't let you test it without purchasing first and it's $90. I also tried Virtual Lab, and Data Recycler. Same thing. Arrgh. Anyone used any of these?
posted by dobbs at 2:13 AM on November 17, 2004

I have had a little luck with Data Rescue X.
posted by britain at 3:45 AM on November 17, 2004

Data Recycler doesn't do what you want, as far as I can tell. You need to have had it already installed and running when the file in question was deleted - it keeps a shadow directory of recently deleted files, or something like that.
posted by ikkyu2 at 4:13 AM on November 17, 2004

i would just like to say that Data Rescue X works pretty well. i was messing around with my partitions in linux and killed my whole partition table. on my osx parition were all my pictures from a recent trip. i reinstalled osx at the beginning of the disk, since the previous install had osx at the back. used data rescue x to scan the entire disk for files and got all my pictures back. take note that it can only find files that have been unlinked and not written over yet. if your file already has been overwritten, there is a good chance you won't be getting it back.
posted by chrisroberts at 9:16 AM on November 17, 2004

Response by poster: Thanks all.

Chris and Britain, is there any place you can recommend that has it cheap? Where did you guys get it? I don't mind $90 but I am terribly unlucky with things like this not working for me.

I deleted the stuff last night and have not deleted anything since nor saved anything for fear of overwriting the deleted data.
posted by dobbs at 9:45 AM on November 17, 2004

Best answer: well, i ended up shelling out the money for the full progam because i had a lot of files to recover. when i was using it, you could download a trial version that would recover something like 5 or 10 files. and it looks like that is still the case. it was the trial that actually lead to my purchasing this software. it was the only one that could actually identify where the missing files were. give the trial a shot. you might be able to get by with just that.
posted by chrisroberts at 10:09 AM on November 17, 2004

Response by poster: doh! Thanks, chrisroberts. I didn't see the trial when I looked before. That's perfect!
posted by dobbs at 10:14 AM on November 17, 2004

Response by poster: chrisroberts and britain, thanks very much. You just saved me a shitload of heartache. Data Rescue X did the trick.
posted by dobbs at 2:36 PM on November 17, 2004