[ironchef926]

It's been about a year now, but a while ago, when I installed Panther, I accidentally chose the wrong installation option, and my entire hard drive was wiped out. It was a bummer. I of, course, have replaced 90% of the missing data, but some of it can't be replaced.

Given the method of deletion, and the time it's been since the data was deleted, is there any way possible to recover some/all of it it?

It's not like I have to have any of the data back, so, if it's gone permanently, it's really no big deal.

Thanks

[tooki]

If you'd done recovery IMMEDIATELY, you might have had a slim chance of getting some of it back. After a year, forget it. Not a snowball's chance in hell. Unless the drive is much, much larger than you need, most areas of the disk will have been written over several times.

tooki

[themexican]

If the data is overwritten it's gone, if not, it's still there, but there is no directory to point to it. Really depends on how much you've used your drive and where the info was before... still you might get lucky.

If you are desperate I'd recommend checking out Data Backup by Prosoft. I've had amazing success with this program even on drives that are badly physically damaged.


Prosoft has just released a drive repair program btw... and given the success i've had with their other products I'm actually tempted to buy it even though my general theory is that optimization programs under OS X usually cause more problems than they fix.

[tooki]

After a year of active use, I don't think you stand a chance of recovering anything. Data Rescue is a great program, but it's not gonna be able to do what you want -- I don't think anything can.

tooki

[ironchef926]

Well, I'll give that program a go, but, like I said, it's no big deal if the data is permanently gone.

[tooki]

I wouldn't even bother. After a year of use, trying to recover data is like trying to read a squirrel's footprints from the mud a year after it hopped by.

tooki