[G4] File "Unerasing"

[Dale Hoffman]

JJ,

I ran TechTools and found nothing on his drive. Something is not 
right. Remember in my post I described an experiment where I trashed 
a file, then immediately rebooted into Norton's and could not even 
find that file. Over righting would have been impossible he has a 
huge drive with hardly anything on it.

I did not even mention backing up in the future to him.

Thanks,
DaleH


>If the data has been overwriten it is gone.  If the data has some 
>overwriten bits it may be recoverable, but remember - it really 
>depends on what bits have been overwriten - luck is a big factor. 
>There are bits in every file that describe where it starts/ends, 
>bits that flag the start/end of any links (fragmented files) and 
>more.  If the flag bits are lost the computer can no longer 
>recognize the stuff left as a file or maybe it can only retieve part 
>of it.
>
>Try Disk Warrior and/or TechTools - They may find a bit more if you 
>are lucky.  But cross your fingers that he did not use Secure Empty 
>Trash.
>The less you use the computer the better - boot from another disk 
>and then access this one, so as to not erase more.  These tools may 
>not be able to boot or your copy may be older so booting from 
>another disk or partition is key.
>
>There are companies that do this but it is extremely expensive. 
>Where's the back-up?  I know I back up once in a while, but if it 
>all went, I could be out a month or twos email and bookmarks.  Work 
>is backed up every couple days and eventually burned to CD for 
>posterity, or that future year when they need that cute photo they 
>remembered oh so long ago.  And I purge after burning a CD.
>
>An external firewire housing with a 160 gig or better is my 
>recomendation - the bigger the better - digital photos, digital 
>music, digital ...
>
>jj
>
>
>On 5-Oct-05, at 1:06 PM, g4-request at listserver.themacintoshguy.com wrote:
>
>>File "Unerasing"
>>To: "A place to discuss Apple's G4 computers."
>>	<g4 at listserver.themacintoshguy.com>
>>Message-ID: <p06230971bf6968370fc3@[204.255.236.138]>
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"
>>
>>A friend brought in his G5 (OS 10.3.9) hoping to use Norton's
>>"Unerase" utility to recover some mistakenly deleted files. I used to
>>use NUM with File Saver installed and had successfully recovered
>>deleted files so I had some hope for helping him get at least some of
>>his data back.  After booting from the Norton Utilities 8.0 CD, we
>>ran Unerase which only returned a dozen or so very old and useless
>>files. He had not been using Filesaver as recommended, but I expected
>>better results than that.
>>
>>We then did an experiment where we trashed a small file and
>>immediately tried to recover it using Unerase. No intervening disk
>>activity to mung the directory. The utility did not find it, showing
>>only the handful of files it had located earlier. A second attempt at
>>file retrieval using Techtools proved ineffective also.
>>
>>Are file retrieval utilities that dependent on assisting components
>>like File Saver, or is there something else going on with my friend's
>>system?
>>
>>DaleH
>
>