Revovering Trashed OS X Files

[pendragon]

It is my "understanding" that OS X over-writes the files immediately when they are deleted. So unless one has a special program (such as Data Recycler) installed prior to the delete, or calls in NSA or the like, the files cannot, for all practical purposes, be recovered.
 
But, I have no real source of my "understanding", so I truly do not know if I am correct, sorta but not exactly correct, have been listening to idiots, have sampled a wee bit too much of the cooking sherry, or the ravages of time have (finally) taken their toll on my synapses.
 
Any enlightenment most appreciated.

Harv

[Gary S]

Harv,

QUOTE

It is my "understanding" that OS X over-writes the files immediately when they are deleted.

I'm not sure if this is true, but I suppose you could give DiskWarrior 3 a chance and hold down the "Option button" and have it Scavage for files. It works well in OS9x but I never tried it on OSX.

[kelly]

I haven't heard that it does Harv.

I think it's just a crapshoot. They are considered "not there" anymore.

So maybe it will and maybe it won't.

tacit's pointed out how hard it is to truly erase files.

Depends how sophisticated your recovery method is.

[dakota]

What about the "trash cache" in TechTool Pro.  Would that work???

[kelly]

It would. Is there a version for OS X yet?

Disabled it on my OS 9.xx Partition myself.

[dakota]

I am only assuming, but with version 4 shipping soon, I would think it would have all the features for X.  Haven't read up on it on their site.

[ljocampo]

OS X doesn't wipe the file's block at all. It just frees up that block via the directory's allocation.  The deleted file will remain intact until the directory allocation does a write to that block.  This is why and how most recovery untilities do their magic.