Deleted pics. from portable hard drives ... how do I restore them (using Apple OS X)

[Wail]

While transferring my pictures from the various portable drives I have to my new home server, I did a silly thing and erased the contents of one of the portable drives without checking if I'd transferred the pictures or not

Well, now I've lost all the pictures taken so far this year :bang:

Anyone know how I may restore them?

I'm using an iMac with the latest OS, pictures were deleted off portable drive and then bin was cleared out. I've since stopped using the drive in question, I've not formatted it, nor have I written anything new on to it in the hope that the images can be recovered.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Deleted member 49549]

Data Rescue 3 and another empty drive and some time may help.

I formatted a drive with a load of video files, but due to their large size i could only recover fragments. You may have some better luck considering you havent formatted and the files are smaller.

 

[steve_lyt]

If you havent re used rhe drive there is a 90 to 100 % chance you can get them back. If you where near me , im in bolton i could use some software i have to attemt recovery, just dont use rhe drive before you try ro recover thw files

Cheers Steve

 

[Wail]

Data Rescue 3 and another empty drive and some time may help.

I formatted a drive with a load of video files, but due to their large size i could only recover fragments. You may have some better luck considering you havent formatted and the files are smaller.

Thank you for the suggestion.

I went to Apple Store and bought Disk Doctors Data Recovery (didn't go with the photo only version as that didn't claim to be able to restore Leica raw files). Cost me just under £110, took a good 17 hours to run through the 1TB drive, after which it came up with a list of folder which were the ones I had deleted, but it didn't restore them :shrug:

I may give it another attempt, but right now I am very tight for time as I am due to travel in a few hours.

I've since kept the drive aside, to make sure I do not use it and will aim to give it another go when I return.

If the application I bought doesn't resolve the issue, I will look into getting the one you've suggested ; meanwhile, I was kind of hoping that someone knew of a way to get them back using an Apple script, something that just magically restores deleted files / images :shrug:

Again, thank you for the suggestion.

If you havent re used rhe drive there is a 90 to 100 % chance you can get them back. If you where near me , im in bolton i could use some software i have to attemt recovery, just dont use rhe drive before you try ro recover thw files

Cheers Steve

Thank you for your input; and thank you for the offer to try to restore the drive / data, the downside I'm in Saudi Arabia, that's a few thousand miles away I'm afraid; but again, thank you very much for the kind offer.

I've made sure to not use it, not to reformat it and to not write anything new to the drive in case it overwrites any of the files and cause a corruption.

 

[RobertP]

but it didn't restore them :shrug:

I've made sure to not use it, not to reformat it and to not write anything new to the drive in case it overwrites any of the files and cause a corruption.

Data recovery programs are usually read only on the 'damaged' drive and will restore the files to a different disc. Don't know your software (or mac computers!) but maybe you have to tell it where to put recovered files?

 

[Wail]

Thanks Robert.

The thing is, it didn't ask me where I wanted to save / restore the files to :shrug:. I'd hasten to guess I didn't know how to use it well.

It did take its time to sift through the drive (1TB) taking a good 17 hours; and right now I don't have the 17 hours to run it again before I have to catch a flight to UK. I will give it another go when I return as I have to get them photos back, it's my whole library from Jan. of this year!