How to Undelete Files Erased by SD?

[ErasedM]

Hello,

I've working on a Friend's iMac (Intel). His Mac HD is almost full so I have been forced to save my files to his external Hard Drive.

What I didn't realize is that his external hard rive is updated automatically by SD. Immediately after SD was running my files were deleted.

How can I undelete these? There were many hours put into those files. I would be very grateful for any help with this.

Since I don't have a mac of my own, I can't afford costly recovery software. Is there an alternative?


Thank you.

[dnanian]

A drive isn't 'automatically' upated by SuperDuper, actually: it only updates when you run. It's likely that you're accessing the external drive incorrectly -- many people click the drive and then click one of the 'sidebar buttons' in Finder, but that switches back to the startup volume.

Instead, navigate through the folders by hand -- to get to the User's home folder, you'd start at the backup drive, then open Users, then their account.

[ErasedM]

Hello Dave, Thanks for the fast reply.

I'm sorry if I was not clear.
By "updated automatically" I meant that SD was running on a schedule.

In terms of navigation, although I do not own a Mac, I am by no means a novice with regard to the Mac OS, and I know exactly where my files were saved and I know that they are not there now. Furthermore a search in Finder also came up with nothing when I searched for my files in the whole computer.

So, to ask my question again:
How can I undelete the missing files?

[dnanian]

You can try to use "Data Rescue II" to recover any files that might have been removed: there's a chance they'll be there...

[ErasedM]

Is there a free alternative?

Or, can SD go restore the state of the computer (and drives from 3 hours ago?)

Thanks again.

[dnanian]

Not that I'm aware of.