[janelh]

i was cleaning up my desk top and deleted (into trash) hubby's usb back up with lots of important stuff on it. he is a teacher and it has lots of school work. i being very efficient even emptied the trash!! i am desperate to get this back and stay married! any advice, i have tried some of the downloads but had very little luck..... please help.
ta jane
emac using os10.

[drmbb]

Little you can do, other than try a commercial data recovery service. Especially as it sounds like you've been using the machine since this happened. That means there's a good chance you've already overwritten some of the deleted file areas.
If you still want to try, stop using the machine, and then use another computer to search for data recovery services, like
drivecrash - 800 233-3648
drivesavers - 800.440.1904
Any of these kind of services are not cheap - just so you're forwarned (although their initial contact/consult is usually free).
Sorry, that's the best I can offer.
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[sandbag1]

Did you move to the trash the files from the hard drive or the hard drive image on the desk top? If you just moved the hard drive image to the trash all you did was unmount the hard drive.
By your description of "USB hard drive" it sounds to me like all you did was drag the hard drive icon to the trash which would just unmount it.