File recovery program for a Mac

[Kazen]

This isn't for me but its for a classmate. The HDD on his mac has failed and he needs a program that can access the HDD and recover some files. I checked the list of utilities in the sticky thread and the only program I found there for this isn't compatible for macs.

[Kriz]

If you have access to the drive, you can throw it in a PC and run SpinRite (http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm), on the hopes that it is something to do with bad sectors that can be recovered (SpinRite works regardless of formatting)

If that's not possible, I'd use Alsoft's Diskwarrior (http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/) product first. Get the bootable CD/DVD of it, and maybe the hard drive issue is related to the file system choking (I've seen it before).

If that fails, you can try Data Rescue III (http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php). I've used DR II many years ago and it did a great job on recovery.

So:

SpinRite (remove drive, put in PC, rule out hardware failure)
DiskWarrior (boot cd, remove filesystem failure)
Data Rescue III (last ditch attempt)


Edit:

Oh, and another good option is to take the drive out (if it's a desktop) and put it in another Mac. Or, if you have an iMac/laptop, try FW Target Disk Mode (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1661) and see if you can get the drive to mount on another Mac - then copy the files over manually.

[Isiolia]

I've used (and have in the office to use) Diskwarrior and Data Rescue II. The former is more for filesystem errors, the latter for actual recovery (undelete, etc). 'course, a lot of problems on Macs stem from filesystem issues, so DW is a fine tool to have on hand for them regardless.

[Kazen]

I just told him to try the Data Rescue program and we downloaded the free trial (Still in class with them currently) and it says it can only recover files less than 10MB on the demo? The files we're trying to recover are InDesign files so some of them are quite large.

[Kriz]

Yeah, your only free option is trying to mount the drive on a different machine (FW Target disk mode or actually moving it as a second drive in a Mac Pro)

The other programs are expensive but, well, there are probably ways to mitigate that.

[Kazen]

Would something like this work?

http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/1626315/3876110/

Its Data Rescue II, and I guess included would be some way to run to the program?

[Antithesis]

Recova doesn't work on Macs?