[NTLK] [OT] Undeleting Tiger File?

From: John Hay (OceanCity_at_mac.com)
Date: Fri Sep 23 2005 - 17:03:13 PDT


Need some OT help if anyone knows more than the below I found doing a
quick Google:

After advising my friend the following "Don't know but sure there is a
way, but stay away from the dreaded "Symantec" unless an absolute last
possible resort short of death by piranha ;-) Horror story after
horror story are told on the OSX list about ANYTHING by this company.Z"

No, you can't go home again. Now that you've upgraded to Tiger, you
either have to recover the file in Tiger, or it's lost forever. You
cannot go back to Panther and recover it. Why? Because (a) the file will
be overwritten long before the last Panther file is installed, and (b)
the disk formats for Panther and Tiger are somewhat incompatible, and
the minute you reinstall Panther everything that was previously on your
disk will be wiped out. In other words, you can't get to your data from
Panther, so just accept that, and move on. Norton Utilities and Norton
SystemWorks have been discontinued and are NOT compatible with Tiger, so
you need to remove them completely and find a new multi-faceted utility
like TechTool Pro.

I belive your only recourse with Tiger (currently) is to pay someone a
lot of money to search your drive by hand. (DriveSavers, Total Recall,
there are several) Norton and DataRescue are the only two products I'm
aware of that specialize in undeleting Macintosh files... Panther and
Tiger are both allergic to Norton, and Data Rescue can only recover
files deleted in OS 9.

Although Data Rescue is intended to recover a damaged disk volume and
not a single trashed file, Prosoft Engineering will vociferously dispute
this claim. The problem recovering deleted files in OS X is the high
level of disk I/O activity inherent with the system. This activity level
makes it highly likely that a deleted file will be overwritten if you
continue to use the drive. Recovery is usually possible only if it is
attempted immediately after deletion, or you immediately quit using the
drive until recovery can be initiated. This is true whether you are
using Norton, Data Rescue, or any other similar product you might find.

However, if you have a second bootable hard drive, you can download a
free trial version of Data Rescue and give it a try. It can't hurt
anything and if the stars are all in the correct alignment you might be
able to recover your file.

If you didn't have any special software installed and running on the mac
when you emptied your trash, the file will be extremely difficult (if
not impossible) to recover. In OS 9, when a file is deleted, the space
it takes up is marked available, and the directory entry is also marked
available. In OS X, it takes it a step further and wipes out the
directory entry. This make it very hard to find the file, and to know
much about it if you do find it. Norton for example has a volume saver
option that can be enabled, which keeps a cheat sheet when you delete a
file, and can use this to recover a deleted file sometimes. Without this
feature installed and active when the file is trashed, it can't easily
be found without like, searching the entire hard drive for file patterns
or something like that.

See the response with its link to FileSalvage 3.0, a new recovery
program from another company, in the MacFixIt.com Micromat thread:
"Help! Any way to recover a trashed folder?" The description on recovery
of files that were saved in a diversity of formats sounds quite
promising. For $89 for the CD or $10 less for the download, it sounds
competitive with Data Rescue. If it works for somebody, please post here
and share with those of us who someday may need such a program. <http://
www.subrosasoft.com/MacSoftware/index.php?
main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=1>

Advisable not to try and adapt any 10.4.1 (Tiger) disc data running 10.3
Norton Utilities.. I tried this one inadvertently ,without realising the
compatability issues, the TIGER start-up drive was unmounted from
desktop by Norton running on Panther ,which subsequently crashed, and
left drive impossible to remount or find after reboot. As per Symantecs
site....

"Norton SystemWorks and Norton Utilities will not be updated for
compatibility with Mac OS X 10.4."

Sorry for such a long OT post, I know this is pushing it.

John

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