I have an issue but not sure where to post so i post here because I indeed needing some expert helps in data recovery.

some of the files in my trash couldn't be removed. i noticed that these files are from an external HDD and only see them pop up when that external HDD is plugged in. Even then, tried to clean trash but the files were still there.

did some research, a guy from a website recommended typing,
"sudo rm -Rv /Volumes/Data 2\ Drive/.Trashes/*"
I did then it DELETED ALL data on my ext. HDD Data 2. I lost EVERYTHING.

tried several data recovery softwares but didn't seem to recover everything. anyone has any recommendations to how i can recover data with the filenames and extensions intact???

PLEASE HELP ME!!!!

Katie.

To be honest, if most software for recovery failed, then probably there's not much you can do. I personally used those apps :

- Bommerang Data Recovery
- VirtualLab
- DiskWarrior

The first one seems pretty effective, at least for me. Give it a try, maybe it will help. The last resort would be using the services of a company like Total Access. They claim to get 99% of lost data back, but it costs much - don't know how important your data was.

Keep us updated so we can come with another solution if this won't work.

---

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just to update.....
i've used stellar phoenix and data recovery. recovred lots of photos, pdfs, txt files.
I've also used testdisk, suppose to be one of the best one out there....seen photos, pdfs, txt files and a few .mkv. but i mainly want to recover iso or mdg files......Image files!

all of the sw i've used has a lot of folders recovered, i still haven't had the chance to go through all of those folders yet for each of the programs.

I've tried diskwarrior too but not sure how to use it to recover files. thought it was more for maintenance of disks.

will let you know.

thanx again.

katie

update.....

my first attempt of recovering, i used data rescue 3. after reviewing the recovered contents, i noticed that it did recover .dmg along with various file formats......mp3, wav, jpg, bmp, avi, mov.......but NO mkvs. however, i did see mkvs recovered by testdisk which i haven't had a chance to look through.

throughly looking all the dmg recovered by data rescue 3, almost HALF of the files have errors when trying to open/mount them. i get codes like "no mountable file systems", "error -4960", "not recognized"......

what else should I try to do? i've read up on 'no mountable file systems', some sites recommend using data rescue 3 or DiskWarrior to repair but don't know how to use those sw to 'repair' corrupted dmg files. I've tried to use Verify disk or Disk repair of Disk Utility but didn't work.....

thanx.

katie