HELP! Deleted ALL music by mistake

I had 2 copies of each file on my HD. One was from before I started using itunes, so my own music folder divided into genres. The other one was the one that itunes created, so basically it took everything and duplicated it. Just yesterday I finally got ready to say goodbye to the original files; i had kept them because that's the way i had organized my music file for years and years, and even though itunes had copied everything and created its own folder with its own structure, i just didn't want to delete the originals. Anyways, so I did, but i forgot that the itunes folder was also in my mac's music folder. So I DELETED EVERYTHING.

Oh please tell me there's a way to recover the files, pleeeeeeeeeeease.
Damn, what did i do? 20gb of music gone.

 

Is there a free undelete program for the macs as there is for windows?

 

don't know. If I did, i wouldn't be here.

 

You can buy some software that will try and restore your files, but it's not 100%.

Of you can pay a couple grand and have your hard drive scoured by some professionals and you might get some more back.

But as far as getting all 20gb back, it's very very unlikely.

 

a couple grand for 20gb of music? no way!!!
God!#%)(&!})(%&!)(%&!.
sigh.

 

so you have no system restore of any kind?

 

oh so cold, so... lonely...

 

nope. nada.

 

wow. that is so unlucky!! I guess it's these times you wish you had time machine...

One thing though, why didn't you at least backup to dvds before just to have something to go back to? I know its cumbersome, I have 21GB of music as well, no external hdd, so I backed up to 5 dvds. Big pain in the butt, the waiting and all, but it's a lifesaver if something like what happened to you actually happens. You don't have anything? Old cd backups, dvd, nothing?

 

nothing fez, nothing. I'm left cold and wet (or is it hot and dry?).
Wait, there are some .aif music files on my hard drive. I'm adding them to itunes now, i'll see what they're about. There seems to be a lot of them, so HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPEFULLy ...

 

Something similiar happened to me, and i lost all of my schoolwork, and I tried to get it back without much luck.

So because of that I got an external hdd and ive been backing up since then.

Also as a comfort, Leopard has Time machine, which will automatically backup and restore even if you delete it, you just need an external drive.

You can buy a restore program, but as said above its not guaranteed, and the demos didnt find my files. They're about 70-100$ for a license, although I dont know if its worth it or not, may have just been me.

 

The (not so) funny thing is, I just purchased a new seagate external HD last month, but I left it in Toronto by mistake. A friend of mine is going to Toronto tomorrow and was supposed to bring it back with her by Monday morning. I had planned to backup everything on my file

 

That really sucks. I think you're SOL. I've been there, done that. I've got nothing constructive to add.

Peace.

 

Actually, you're not totally out of luck. Try Data Rescue II. I've actually had a lot of luck with it. The best thing is to not use your computer at all until you're ready to install the program and run it. Use a different computer to download it, and if possible you should run it from a jump drive. The more you use your computer the more likely it is that you're over writing your deleted data.

Also look at:
MediaRECOVER
RescuePRO Deluxe
*these two are actually for external media, but if you can get another mac to run it you can start link to yours in target disk mode*
File Salvage
Boomerang
Stellar Phoenix


pm me if you need more help with stuff.

 

Can't you just log into iTunes and re-download the files or re-rip your CD collection?

I'd be very upset if I just lost $20,000 of .mp3 files.

 

I got some good news, I got some bad news. The good news is that for some reason, the only folder that I didn't delete when transferring my files from my old HP to my current macbook was the music CD (everything else was deleted). The bad news is that any song that I had acquired from May 2007 afterwards is lost, and for teh ones which i have CDs, well, most of my CDs are sent back to Iran after I copy the songs, so that my dad can listen to them as well.

My 200 opera songs, all gone

 

that sucks man, but at least you got some of it back.

and your thread just reminded me to update my second back up of music!

 

Cant you download the songs you bought again?

 

My guess is most of it is ripped, or gotten some other way.

Take me for example. I have 50+ GB of music. None of it was purchased online, but 95+% of it is legal. I do like to download stuff to see if I like it and if I do I'll buy it, if not I delete it. I've got about 300 CDs that I've ripped. There's a lot of indie stuff, a lot of free legal downloads, and also a lot of my bands recordings(probably about 8-10GB).

So if I lost my music I couldn't just go re download them either.

 

A friend of mine lost 50gb of music he had collected over the years. I immediately got a $100 external hard drive and back up all my docs, pictures and music to it now. If my house catches fire I'm grabbing two things before I jump out the window- my old photo albums and that external hard drive.

 

hahah, you made me lol

 

do you have an ipod that they are all on? if so, your life just got so much easier. http://www.freemacware.com/senuti/

programs like that have saved my tail more than once.

 

i have an ipod, but i didn't have many songs on it. Just out of the blue a crack appeared on the screen a month ago, and sicne then i stopped using it and don't even know whether it would work if i hook it up, although i don't see why it wouldn't.
But i can't find its usb cord
A lot of stuff were ripped, most of them before 2002-3 when it was less of an issue. As I said, i managed to get everything until May back. But what I'm most saddened about is my classical music collection. I bought so many CDs, and all of them were sent back home to Iran so my dad could listen to them. All gone ...

 

Well, if its bought from the iTunes Store, no, that's not possible. Its one-download only. I must've lost at least $50 worth of music (sure, not a lot, but remember I'm broke ) because I forgot to back up my iTunes tracks and reformatted.

Now I have four copies of all my music; one on my MacBook, two on separate flash drives, and my external hard drive .

 

That is kinda silly. Apple should get on that. Imagine losing 20 gigs of store purchases!! Then again, with that many purchased songs I would backup for sure, but this world is full of dumbases so you never know...

 

.... Great Program.....I think I'll keep that little program in mind.

Well It wouldn't work if you iPod got a HDD failure like my last 2.
I used to keep all my music on my iPod, you know to take less
HDD space...never again.

Good Luck!

 

Isn't that a bit excessive?