How To recover files

fastmustangs1@y · #1 December 12th, 2004, 01:51 AM

In Panther how can I recover files that have been thrown in the trash already. Thanks,

Matt

ElDiabloConCaca · #2 December 12th, 2004, 02:11 AM

It depends... did you empty the trash after moving the files there? If not, then the files are safely in the Trash. Open the Trash from the Dock and your files should be there...

If you did empty the trash after putting the files there, then that gets trickier and there's no guarantee that the files will be recoverable. If they are important files, I would suggest ceasing all use of the computer immediately, as the longer you use it, the better the chance that the files will not be recoverable (the space they occupied on the hard drive may be overwritten with new files if you use the computer).

In this case, there are several software solutions you can try -- but be warned, recovering an erased file can take hours... the software has to search the entire hard drive for erased files, and that can take a long time.

If your data is really, really important, I would suggest sending the drive off to a professional data rescue company, like http://www.datasavers.com. If you'd like to give it a try yourself, you might wanna learn about DataRescue X:
http://versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/1133

Just keep in mind, the more you use your computer, the less likely you'll be able to recover the files.

swong · #3 February 3rd, 2005, 03:27 PM

That's interestng, I never thought that it would have been possible to potentially retrieve something that was removed from the trash!

ElDiabloConCaca · #4 February 3rd, 2005, 07:06 PM

There is one way to guarantee that a file deleted from the trash will never, ever be recoverable -- "Secure Empty Trash" from the Finder menu. This will write the data over with garbage many times, ensuring that the files securely erased will never be recoverable, even by advanced alien technology.

If your trash contains many hundreds of megabytes of data, though, the "Secure Empty Trash" command could take a long time to complete. I securely erased 2 GB once, and it took the better part of 15 minutes to empty the trash.