[clairpinks]

Hello all and Merry Christmas if you're not the bah humbug sort : )

I probably know the answer to my query but I am just wishing it's not the case.....

Can anyone help? I have an old 13inch macbook, which was running very slowly, when I attempted to declutter and delete a few items the computer froze and after a restart came up with a no entry sign and an alternating apple logo (I sensed impending doom), but after a bit of forum research saw that I could reinstall the snow leopard disc and that may help.

I reinstalled but there wasn't enough space, so a little research later I (stupidly) went through the motions of an erase as the forum mentioned it was relatively easy to get data back....argggghhh I am naive!!!!

Yes it's relatively easy to get back if you have set up time machine, but I hadn't (eejit), so my mac was working again, but I had absolutely nothing on it, zippo, zilch, nada

Is there absolutely any work around to this? Anyone?

Here's hoping.............

[bastion]

clairpinks, on 21 December 2012 - 02:23 AM, said:

Hello all and Merry Christmas if you're not the bah humbug sort : )

I probably know the answer to my query but I am just wishing it's not the case.....

Can anyone help? I have an old 13inch macbook, which was running very slowly, when I attempted to declutter and delete a few items the computer froze and after a restart came up with a no entry sign and an alternating apple logo (I sensed impending doom), but after a bit of forum research saw that I could reinstall the snow leopard disc and that may help.

I reinstalled but there wasn't enough space, so a little research later I (stupidly) went through the motions of an erase as the forum mentioned it was relatively easy to get data back....argggghhh I am naive!!!!

Yes it's relatively easy to get back if you have set up time machine, but I hadn't (eejit), so my mac was working again, but I had absolutely nothing on it, zippo, zilch, nada

Is there absolutely any work around to this? Anyone?

Here's hoping.............

There is some consumer-priced software that can go over a disk and attempt to recover as much as possible. The happy news is that when a disk is erased all that really happens is that the directory entries that describe it are told they aren't valid any more. The entries and data are still there until they get overwritten by later data. Your reinstall probably did a fair amount of damage in that respect but there's probably still something recoverable. My recommendation for software here would be Micromat's TechTool Pro.

Another alternative, which will be more expensive and slower but also is likely to get back more of your data is a service such as DriveSavers. You send your disk to them. They get back as much as they can and send it back. They're very good. They're not cheap. As I recall, though, they'll give you an estimate of their ability to recover information at a reasonable cost so you can make an informed decision about whether you want to pay for the full recovery service.

If you haven't already placed an order for a drive to use as your backup for the future, do so.

[clairpinks]

You're a superstar, thank you. Great advice. So good to hear all may not be lost!

Thank you for taking the time to respond with such detailed info.

Hope you have a fabulous Christmas and New Year!

Bye for now, a very happy bunny

[icerabbit]

Best wishes for the New Year.

I don't know if you have tried data recovery yet since posting.

If you only re- installed the original operating system, there's a fair chance it will be reinstalled where it originally was without affecting too much of your personal files.

I don't know that there are freeware utilities like they exist for Windows that can help you out to find your files. TechToolPro and DataRescue are very highly rated. I think data rescue has a free trial that will show you all the files it finds recoverable, then you can decide to buy a license. I've also seen Stellar Phoenix recover data where others failed.

Ideally you should not use the system that you want to recover data from, and hook that system via target drive to another mac, only read from it through the recovery software on the other mac and write the found files to an external drive. If you only have one computer. You will have to install the software and run the recovery software, but by all means you need to have a large enough external drive to write the results to.