I did something incredibly stupid today and lost most of the Users folder on my system while transferring them to my other hard drive (Move, not copy). My last backup was a year ago, so I am looking for a utility to undelete deleted files. Any suggestions? I don't really want to spend $100-$200 for one as there isn't anything that is really that critical; more of a nice to have.

Ones I have looked at so far are:

FileSalvage (6.1.7)

AppleXsoft File Recovery for Mac (2.0)

Boomerang-MacOSX-2.1.9

StellarPhoenix 3.5

Any recommendations?

Looking at DataRescue II which looks like it could be a winner... but still open to suggestions.

You've probably already looked, but is there any chance that they are in your recycle bin?

You've probably already looked, but is there any chance that they are in your recycle bin?

Unfortunately no. I was moving the entire Users folder over to a new HD when it appeared to freeze. I restarted the Finder, and then moved the Users folder again, telling it to overwrite the existing Users folder I wound up with a Users folder of about 300k (for 4 users)... and nothing in the recycle bin.

No current backup, insufficient research in best way to do this (that wasn't it), etc. A comedy of errors today.

Since i was moving most of it from the boot drive to the 2nd drive, I am questioning whether I should scan the boot drive or the new one? Most of the data had moved to the new drive when my problem occurred, so I initially thought that would be the one to look at. I would like to end up with the boot drive restored more or less where it was at (with the User data on it), and then go about doing this the right way with a current backup.

I am using it and have been all day. I have not done anything with the new drive however. I also have a firewire drive hooked up which I am using for the scan data destination. I know, not the best but is the only way I can do it (don't have another computer to use). Since I didn't lose anything critical (that I am aware of) this will have to do.

Thanks for the opinions Reks. I was having a hard time getting a warm and fuzzy about the crippled demo modes of most of these (one to the tune of $199 for the version that could actually recover anything). The Data Rescue was the first one that looked like it might actually be worth a shit and not a total pain in the ass. It helps that it is inside the amount that I would consider paying ($99).

Yeah, but the problem is, the more you use that machine, the more likely that the trashed files are going to get overwritten by your browser cache or something.

Well, now that he's got his question answered, he should get off the computer.

yup, drII is my software of choice too

DR II will probably recover the files, but likely they'll be unnamed and have no folders. A good rule for next time is, copy first, then delete afterwards. Other than that, it's time for 10.5 and Time Machine so this doesn't happen again.

dr2 is really good, it almost always gets the names and directory tree, too

Does this change between the demo version and registered? I scanned the entire new drive for deleted files, but from what I see of the results, the filenames are not preserved and I don't think the directory structure was either.

YMMV. The last time I saw it used someone nuked all their pictures, and only recovered the files, randomly named 000001.jpg to 005678.jpg or somesuch.

OWC had DataRescueII for $58 or a package deal on DataRescue II and Drive Genius for $99, so I ordered the package.

My brother sent a link to the procedure to do the move correctly, so once I have the drive restored and backed up, I'll go ahead and do that.

Koos Kaspers.nl :: Howto: Moving Home directory to another volume

DRII won't save the file names if it can't, but it's as good as anything I've ever used, and it's done some remarkable recoveries for me.

Just a follow-up. Got the Datarescue II / Drive Genius package the other day. I had already done a scan of the drive and saved it (to another drive). I checked by doing a new scan to see if anything changed; it didn't. So I went ahead and started recovery of what it could find. The results were all loose files without the correct filenames and directory structure.

A shitload (~10,000 files) of jpegs consisting of both pictures (iPhoto) and what must be browser cache data. An equal shitload of email messages. All of which must be gone thru by hand. Since many of these were already present from the 2/2008 backup, I'm only doing these as needed. I also bought a copy of iLife '08; hopefully the newer version of iPhoto will deal with duplicates better than the version (v4?) I have now. My computer (dual G5 1.8GHz, OSX Tiger) won't run iLife '09, so this is the best I can do.

And a huge amount of iTunes files (23Gb), all of which isn't needed (at least according to my sons who also use the computer).

Things it didn't recover (that I know of): Firefox bookmarks

Pain in the ass, and of course a self-inflicted wound

Another package I looked at that could be better than Data Rescue II is FileSalvage by subrosasoft. This may have a better knowledge of filetypes than Data Rescue does, and has a built-in preview app that seems to work pretty well. Since I already bought Data Rescue, I'm sticking with it and hopefully won't do something stupid like this again.

true dat

regarding your mail, i highly recommend using IMAP instead of POP3 if possible.

I'll have to see if Comcast supports imap. Might not be an issue since I am getting very tired of their pricing and it appears I can get uverse with lower pricing now, though I dislike them even more...

:basement: for both of them

Maybe do Dish for TV, and keep comcast for internet.

I do directv for tv and comcast for internet, and it lets me use imap for my email (to a non-comcast server, no idea about comcast mail, I've never used it)

Just auto-forward all mail through the Comcast account to Gmail and let them store it for you.

regarding your mail, i highly recommend using IMAP instead of POP3 if possible.

Okay, I'll bite -- why? Don't dumb it down for me, I'll understand the explanation, it's just news to me.

Pretty sure you can do server side storage with POP3, but yeah, it's not nearly as advanced (no searching, etc.).

Yeah!!!!!!!!! your files are no longer deleted permanently for ever you can recover them probably with Stellar Phoenix Mac Recovery Software which can recover HFS,HFS+ and FAT file systems. Give a try