You are in deep Doo Doo. IF the external had not been written over there might be a chance. There may still be some recoverable bits but do not expect too much. I will let others who have been in similar situations suggest the best route to take from here.

A general thought for anyone that might be reading this thread. Just because an item is on an external HD does not mean that it is backed up. If your main HD lacks space and you are using an external to store irreplaceable things such as photos or home video the external also needs to be backed up. You can use a second external or data DVDs. This is just as or maybe even more important than backing up your main HD.

 

Hi, I did this a couple of years ago and wrote about it here

You can read the whole thread here

In a nutshell, you agree to send some people a boatload of money, then you connect the bad computer to a good computer using target disk mode and pray.

In my case, I recovered all but 10 photos and it cost me about $200 - which I thought was a good deal considering what was lost.

But then a year later, my hd failed and I lost it all again anyway, but that's a sob story for another day.

Good luck, Margaret

 

If you need to recover deleted photographs, using software like this gives you a reasonable chance to get at least some of them back, but I think with movies or videos you will only get bits and pieces of the videos which in the end are useless unless a still photograph from the videos is of some value.

 

Re Videos

Just to correct a point and make it more clear: the videos deleted were on the Macbook hard drive and the external HD,which was supposed to be used, didn't get used at all,which is the problem of sorts. So I'm trying to recover deleted videos from my MB.

 

Just to correct a point and make it more clear: the videos deleted were on the Macbook hard drive and the external HD,which was supposed to be used, didn't get used at all,which is the problem of sorts. So I'm trying to recover deleted videos from my MB.

As CanadaRam pointed out, being on the main HD actually reduces your chances. Besides the temp files you also have Spotlight doing its thing.

Did you keep the original tapes from the camera?

 

You're probably hooped. IF you stop using the machine immediately after deletion, you have hope of recovering. However if you then write a bunch of stuff to the drive (or even just use the machine and let OSX write and erase temporary files) then the data is overwritten and gone for good.

You can try getting a program Data Rescue II which will scan for deleted files that have not yet been overwritten, but I would not be laying odds on success.

 

Hey, if you follow the instructions that I posted above, you might be successful in recovering at least part of what was deleted. You don't pay until you know that you can recover.

Please give it a try before you give up.

Margaret

 

Am rying it



Thanks. I downloaded it on my Imac but Virtual Lab can't see my Macbook even though the Macbook hard drive shows up in the Finder and on my IMac Desktop. I've rebooted the Macbook holding T down and the Firewire symbol is on the MB desktop but Virtual lab only sees my Imac Hard drive. I've restarted the VL program 4 times but still the same results. Read all the FAQ and instructions on the users guide but can't see anything similar to my situation.Any hints?

 

FileSalvage - Mac OS X Data Recovery, Undelete Files, Rescue Lost Data

.

 

When I re-read my post about how I did it, I remember saying that it was important that the hurt computer be off when when you connect the firewire cable. I don't know if that makes a difference.

I've used target disk mode in other situations and it didn't seem to matter if the computers were off or on when connecting the cable. But I wrote it there so it might mean something.

Sorry I can't be more help. It was a long time ago, but I do remember there being lots of information on their site.

Margaret

 

I agree with CanadaRAM -- unless you're prepared to spend thousands on a chance, you're probably wasting your time trying to recover the videos.

You've still got the original tapes (I trust), so basically my suggestion is "start over." You might actually find that you don't need to do "a week's worth of editing" this time around, and might also develop a backup strategy that will prevent this miscommunication issue from ever being a big deal again.

I have often found that, when (ahem) forced to take a fresh approach to my original footage, the "second round" edit produces a better product.

 

Alas..

the original tapes were damaged by,I believe,souvenir fridge magnets that I must have put in the same bag compartment as my mini dv tapes on my way home from my trip. This has caused me many headaches (lots of previous posts re this) It's made my tapes useless in IMovie 07 and IMovie 06 can process them but the sound is garbled and the video is clipped. I had considered myself lucky to have put some of these videos on the Macbook prior to the trip home but never thought of getting them on DVD until after they were finished being edited....

 

Data Rescue II seems to be highly recommended
Data Rescue II - easy data recovery for Mac OS X. Free trial.

 

If you've used time machine a bit and some if not all of the movies made it onto your macbook's hard drive before getting canned there might be the chance that time machine made a backup of the movies.

If you can't resolve your issue I feel sorry; data loss is a very disappointing experience.