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megasad · Mar 23, 2003, 11:58 AM

"Jesus Fucking Christ, Vinnie!"

The feeling, as I clicked Erase for the second time in Disk Utility, and then realised I'd selected the wrong partition, had just deleted 25GB of extremely important files... The quote above pretty much sums it up.

My stomach fell away, there's a ringing in my ears.

What can I do to get my data back?

I do not have DiskWarrior or anything like that. Is my only choice to purchase it? Or is there a freeware/shareware (most importantly, downloadable) alternative?

The partition was on my external FireWire hard drive. I ejected it and switched it off as soon as I realised what I had done.

Help? Please?

-Simon

Mr. Blur · 12:25 PM

you might give Data Rescue a try. the demo lets you see what it will recover but only recovers 1 file per session - but at least you'll be able to see if it will get your stuff back. it's a long-shot though if you've formatted twice.....

chris v · Mar 23, 2003, 01:10 PM

Nortun Unerase. Has to run in OS 9 I think, but it might retrieve the majority of the files, since you haven't written anything to the drive since hitting the erase button in Disk Utility, which actually only erases the directories, and not the files themselves.

CV

mrmister · Mar 23, 2003, 02:58 PM

F*ck Norton. You need Data Rescue, stat. Whatever you do, have no disk activity (esp. WRITES) on that drive, as more activity = more files hosed.

Norton sucks, and Unerase will only help if you had it on before the disaster.

CharlesS · Mar 23, 2003, 03:41 PM

If you reformatted the drive, and really need that data back, my first suggestion would be DriveSavers.

megasad · Mar 23, 2003, 03:59 PM

Originally posted by Mr. Blur:
you might give Data Rescue a try. the demo lets you see what it will recover but only recovers 1 file per session - but at least you'll be able to see if it will get your stuff back. it's a long-shot though if you've formatted twice.....

I tried DiskWarrior 2.1.1 under OS 9 and that couldn't find a thing, so now I'm downloading the Data Rescue demo. Hopefully I'll have better luck with that.

Also, in my original post, I didn't mean that I'd formatted the partition twice. That would just have been foolish on my part. What I was referring to by, "for the second time," was the feature of Disk Utility that is meant to stop this exact kind of idiocy from occurring in the first place; the confirmation dialogue sheet when you click Erase in the Erase tab. The one that asks you whether you want to, "destroy all information on the volume." So I probably should have bothered to check which partition was selected, before clicking the throbbing Erase button...

Anyway, 40% of Data Rescue is downloaded, I only hope it works.

megasad · Mar 23, 2003, 04:12 PM

Originally posted by CharlesS:
If you reformatted the drive, and really need that data back, my first suggestion would be DriveSavers.

I download that where? I checked VersionTracker and MacUpdate. Or did you mean drivesavers.com? They're kind of overkill; although I'll miss those 25GB if I can't get them back, I don't earn any money from them, so couldn't justify (or, more importantly, afford) the expense. Plus, I was hoping for downloadable software, on account of the wanting my stuff back pronto.

eno · Mar 23, 2003, 06:04 PM

You're ****ed.

megasad · Mar 23, 2003, 07:03 PM

Originally posted by eno:
You're ****ed.

Bollocks.

I'm beginning to think you're right. Data Rescue has been chugging away for just under three hours now and still has about 30% left of the drive to scan, but the Temporary Items folder it created on another partition has seen no activity since its creation. And, even if it finds something, I'll only be able to extract one of the several thousand files on account of it being the demo. If it finds nothing I'm going to cut my losses and give up.

Also, a question. Because I erased the partition using Disk Utility, is this why DiskWarrior couldn't find anything? Had I simply deleted the files in the Finder, emptied the Trash, it would have worked? Academic now, just wondering.

megasad · Mar 23, 2003, 07:29 PM

So then I accidentally cancelled the scan and it's had to start all over again.

Ho ho ho.

alex_kac · Mar 23, 2003, 07:35 PM

DiskWarrior only recreates the directory. If you erased everything, DiskWarrior won't help you. It does not, I repeat, does not "unerase".

megasad · Mar 23, 2003, 08:31 PM

Originally posted by alex_kac:
DiskWarrior only recreates the directory. If you erased everything, DiskWarrior won't help you. It does not, I repeat, does not "unerase".

Thanks for explaining that. I'd never used DiskWarrior before, just heard of it when other people on these forums would extol its virtues whenever it recovered their data, so I had high hopes. Said hopes now pinned on Data Rescue, but I'm not expecting much.