There are a number of ways in which files can go missing from your hard drive. One of the most aggravating ways is when you accidentally delete a file that you need. It's happened to everyone: you drag a file to the trash, empty the trash, and slap your forehead when you realize that you actually needed that file. There's no shame in it. But there's no "Undo" button, either. Without special software, the file you just deleted is gone forever.
Fortunately, Disk Drill now offers Guaranteed Recovery. Guaranteed Recovery hangs on to a copy of every file that you delete from the trash, letting you later recover it if you choose. Disk Drill quietly works in the background, automatically making copies of files that you put in the trash, before you delete them. So when you empty the trash, Disk Drill has already made a safe backup copy in another location.
How to...
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Runs on any PPC
or Intel Mac with Mac OS X 10.5+ |
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Guaranteed Recovery: Why and How to Protect Trashed Files.
#1
Guaranteed Recovery
If you don't want to see the deleted file ever again, no problem – you'll never see it. But if you change your mind, just go into Disk Drill, select the file that you want to bring back, and save it. The recovered file will be exactly in the state that it was in when the file was deleted, and not any previous version. This saves hard drive space but it means that Guaranteed Recovery is not a replacement for version backups, Time Machine, or Versions (a new feature in OS X 10.7, aka Lion). Even if file data is changed, overwritten, or altered at some point before deletion, Guaranteed Recovery keeps a file only in the version that it was in when deleted.
#2
Disk Drill's protection algorithms
To start protection of files with Guaranteed Recovery, go to the “Prevent data loss” tab in Disk Drill. At the bottom of the window, there is the option “Guaranteed Recovery protection is off”. To the right of that option, click on the button that resembles a padlock. Now your deleted files will be protected automatically. To recover one of these files, go to the “Recover data” tab, in which you can see all of the files that Disk Drill can recover, using both Recovery Vault and Guaranteed Recovery (See #5).
Sounds perfect, right? And in many ways, it is. But keep in mind that since Guaranteed Recovery stores files on your hard drive (although invisibly and in the background), Guaranteed Recovery takes up hard drive space. If you decide to get rid of Guaranteed Recovery, or limit Guaranteed Recovery by size or by file size to free up disk space, Guaranteed Recovery files will not be kept indefinitely (See #6). Disk Drill needs these files in order to recover your data!
#3
Undelete your recently deleted files
In some ways, Guaranteed Recovery is equivalent to an “Undelete Recent” feature in Mac OS X (Apple, are you taking notes?), in that it keeps deleted files as long as possible. Note that if you use the “Secure Empty Trash” option in the File menu, instead of the normal “Empty Trash”, then there is nothing that any disk utility – Disk Drill included – can do.
#4
Guaranteed Recovery vs. Recovery Vault
Guaranteed Recovery works very differently than Recovery Vault, another Disk Drill technology. Put simply, Guaranteed Recovery works preemptively (by making copies before anything is deleted), while Recovery Vault works after the fact (by recording file properties when it is too late to make copies). Recovery Vault may be the only option if you have not turned on protection previously, but Guaranteed Recovery makes thorough, complete copies and therefore offers greater reliability and certainty of recovery.
So for maximum protection, leave plenty of hard drive space for Guaranteed Recovery to work, and allow it to keep files for as long as you think may be necessary.
#5
Guaranteed Recovery: protection scope
Guaranteed Recovery is best used on your main hard drive (startup disk) or an external drive that is constantly connected to the computer. Because of the way that Time Machine works, if a drive is used for Time Machine backups, it is not possible to protect the entire drive with Guaranteed Recovery. If you still need to protect parts of a drive that is also used for Time Machine, select the specific folders that need Guaranteed Recovery enabled, and not the entire disk.
#6
Guaranteed Recovery: free up disk space
Disk Drill allows you to set the maximum storage duration and file size for the files protected by Guaranteed Recovery. These settings, however, do not take effect immediately: Guaranteed Recovery checks these settings only once every 15 minutes. If you need to free up disk space immediately, you may not want to wait that long. In that case, in the settings, use the Reset button to zero out the files kept by Guaranteed Recovery.