Data Recovery
(This page is a work in progress.)
This page focuses on recovering data that has been lost through
accidental deletion, virus activity, or hardware failure.
Rule #1 is STOP! STOP! STOP!
Whatever you are doing to try to get your file(s) back,
stop it immediately!
There is a real chance you can recover lost data, but
the more random things you do on your computer, the more likely
it is that you will step right on top of your lost data.
OK, now that you aren't making things worse, you can take the time
to find out what your options are.
There are quite a few options and almost all of them will cost
you money; some of them cost lots of money.
Accidental Deletion
Both Windows and OS X have multiple levels of "deletion."
What you did, how long ago you did it, and
what you have done with your computer since then all play a part in
whether you will ever see your file again.
- If all you did was recently delete a file, then you can almost certainly
simply go to the Recycle Bin or Trash Can and undelete it.
- If you "emptied" the Trash Can on OS X and the missing file(s)
resided on your primary disk drive, then you need to immediately
shutdown your computer and start doing research.
This has to do with how OS X reuses freed-up file space.
If the files are another drive, then you might be OK
with leaving the machine on.
- Things on Windows are almost as critical as OS X.
If the deleted files are on your C: drive (your primary boot drive),
then you would be better off
shutting the machine down while you research your options.
Windows users have more programs they can use than Mac people,
but that's not unusual.
- Runtime Software has tools for
most of the different file systems used by Windows. FAT32 and NTFS are
the two main ones.
- SubRosaSoft.com's FileSalvage
program has gotten a lot of good press on OS X forums.
Viruses
Hardware Failure
If a disk drive "dies," data loss can run anywhere from
"none at all" all the way to "total destruction".
How the drive dies has a lot to do with what you can
recover from it.
I had a 350GB drive full of music die a little bit at a time.
(It was probably the oxide flaking off the disk platter.)
By using GetBackData for NTFS ($69 from
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