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Possible Duplicates:
How to find the original content when the folder is already “replaced”?
Is there any free undelete software for the Mac?

I thought that all operating systems would merge folder content when being moved to the same location. Imagine my surprise when that didn't happen and I have hundreds, if not thousands of files that have gone missing and are nowhere to be found.

Because they were not "deleted" they are not in the trash bin.

I've tried to do some recovery using a program called stellarPheonix but after about a 24hour scan, it didn't recognize any of the raw files (.dng,.arw) as image files and so I couldn't see if they could be recovered. It also didn't show the directory structure, which would be handy.

I tried a quick scan, but all it showed was files that were still on the HD, not sure what the point of that is.

I've used recover 2000 on Win and it does a good job, does anyone know of anything that works quickly and reliably for this kind of file recovery. (I don't think I should have to do a sector-by=sector for this kind of file loss)

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marked as duplicate by Arjan, quack quixote May 30 '10 at 0:52


Do you use Time Machine? –  MDMarra May 29 '10 at 4:16

2 Answers 2

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Data Rescue is the go-to Mac data recovery software, it's currently listed at $99. There aren't too many (any?) free options for Mac, because Time Machine is so easy to use and so widely used.

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I've had good results with this piece of software in the past - recovered some 17,000 photos from a friend's vacation. –  Darth Android May 29 '10 at 4:30
I am surprised that I could not get the folder structure or the file names, but I found the files, sorting them will be another headache still. –  Daniel May 29 '10 at 21:33

Nope, you're pretty much screwed.

Next time note that it says "File exists, would you like to {overwrite | replace}" not merge.

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