I accidentally erased one of my drives using Disk Utility. Nothing has been written to the drive since it was erased. Do you have a suggestion for the best software for recovering the files?
William Eschenfeldt
If you didn’t choose one of the secure erase options (which will overwrite your data with junk, making it much harder to recover the data), you have a decent shot at getting your data back. We can suggest a couple of tools that we’ve had success with.
The first is Prosoft Engineering’s $99 [£60] Data Rescue 3 (www.prosofteng.com). Unlike some other utilities that demand that you install them on a drive before the bad thing happens, Data Rescue 3 works after the effluent has forcefully made contact with the rotating blades. We’ve also had good results with SubRosaSoft.com’s FileSalvage ($90 [£54] www.subrosasoft.com). Like Data Rescue 3, it recovers lost data after the damage has been done. Additionally, it lets you search for specific file types. Before you invest in either program, download the free demos. When you run each demo, it will display all the files it can find. Choose the program that best identifies your data.
Note that, regardless of which tool you pick, recovering data can take hours. Data Rescue 3 is faster than the previous version, but it can still take a long time to retrieve your data. The same goes for FileSalvage. If you have a high-capacity drive from which you’re attempting to recover data, start the job before going to bed. By the time you wake up, your recovered files should be waiting for you.
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