MAC DATA Recovery.

[sixpackshaker]

Friend of a friend deleted 10 years worth of home photos. He is looking for software that can recover his info. Or should he hand his external drive over to a data recovery specialist, and fork over a lot of money too?

Looking for recommendations for software or services that will handle MAC.

[SpecialKO]

Is he in a town/city with an Apple Store which has a good rep? The one near me is great for any issues I might have with my Macbook.

[sixpackshaker]

I think he talked to an Apple Rep, who could not help him or make recommendations. I don't think he tried the genius counter.

[drifter]

Try Photorec. It's a free command line utility that recovers deleted files. It should work with OS X. Some more options are listed here.

[sixpackshaker]

Thanks for the tips.

[Matt²]

ooh.. not a Mac specialist, but if all else fails, I can get you a discount through Drivesavers since I am a retailer. AND they have known specials specifically for photos, so yeah, it'd be a lot of money, BUT not nearly as much as a full drive recovery.

[SpecialKO]

I think he talked to an Apple Rep, who could not help him or make recommendations. I don't think he tried the genius counter.

The reason why I ask is that they're supposed to be very good for that. At least the ones in NYC are. Getting back mistakenly deleted files is supposed to be one of their things.

[Amorous Eyes]

I don't have any MAC specific advice but I have handled mass recoveries of files before.

If this is his system drive power it down and set up a new temporary system drive, don't atttach the old drive until you are ready to start the recovery. This is important because as long as no new data is being written on the now 'empty' sectors you can generally do a 100% recovery on anything that has been deleted. That is assuming this wasn't some military 50 time rewrite deletion process, which I assume it wasn't.

If this was on a secondary or external drive make sure the drive remains inactive. Unhook it or turn it off, make sure there is no downloading or transfers of ANYTHING to that drive as that may overwrite the data where the photo's are held. Then start recovery with a good program.

As this is on a MAC I cannot advice you on what to use apart from a quick Google but drifter posted some options so I'd give that a shot.

Good luck!

[PatrThom]

To second what AE says, above.
1) STOP USING THE DRIVE. IMMEDIATELY.
1a) Set up another drive to boot from, if you haven't already. Relatively easy to do on Macs.
2) Some software already exists which will do what you say you need. Data Rescue is one.
3) There are many facilities which do data recovery. Some charge a lot less for the 'I accidentally deleted my files' type of recovery as opposed to 'non-working hard drive' recovery. Check around.

It's not that difficult to recover files PROVIDED THAT you follow the advice in #1, above. Seriously, it's THE most important thing you can do to maximize your chances of data recovery.

--Patrick

[sixpackshaker]

I don't think that money is really a consideration with this guy, but free is always better. Power down and removal was my first bit of advice.