[Flimsy]

Dear Little Helpers,

I was lucky to retrieve my stolen MacBook Pro 15" Retina (Mid 2012), but it was already up for sale and therefore all the data has been wiped and the OS was newly installed. I don't know what exactly the thief and the technicians did to wipe it clean (whether they formatted it, or how) but when I got the computer back, and started it up, it opened on a fresh desktop window, with a new user profile created.

My first attempt was speaking to a Mac Genius, who told me that there is no data recovery for SSD drives, only for hard drives. Being determined to get my data back, I kept looking online and found all sorts of recovery softwares, claiming that data can be restored even for SSD drives.

So what's really up? It's great to have the MacBook back but obviously it's the data I'm after.

Please share your experiences and suggestions, eternally grateful for any leads that would help me put the data back in place where it belongs.

Thanks!

[Mike Wuerthele]

The key here is not using the machine until data is recovered. Data can be retrieved from a SSD, but its iffy, and going to depend greatly on what they did to clean out your machine.

Good luck!

[Flimsy]

Thanks for the Feedback Mike. I've not yet used the computer but the thief (and his computer technician accomplices) reinstalled the IOS and created a new user profile. That's the only thing that has happened on this MacBook Pro since it got wiped.

Any leads for data recovery? I'm currently in Africa, so anything that requires shipping the MacBook Pro isn't really an option. Any data recovery software recommendations?

Thanks!

[anthology123]

Whatever you use for data recovery, keep in mind that you no longer have the Partition Map that was there when your files were there. So don't be surprised that any file recovery you do, you will get files called File0, File1, File2, etc for each different kind of application. You will also get recovered any files that you tossed out again, plus you will mostly get System Files that will be of little use to you.
Since the drive was erased and a new system installed in its place, you already lost a chunk of your files, so don't expect to get everything back from a recovery.

Good luck on getting whatever files you can recovered, and make sure you back up your data this time.
you might look into this application which I use at my office, called Data Rescue 4.
Mac File Recovery Software | Prosofteng