I'm working inter alia on a Kontakt instrument. Yesterday, I spent many hours with sampling, looping, editing of sounds.

As you probably know, Kontakt stores each single edit. When you close Kontakt and open it again, it permanently stores only the last edit of a sound and deletes the previous ones.

But yesterday, as i was about to save the project changes, Kontakt crashed.
Every single edit was lost, even the final ones.

Unfortunately i switched off Time Machine before, because i didn't want
the backup function to run during the workflow.

Usually temporary files are invisible. Not so with Kontakt, what is irritating. Kontakt stores them like seemingly normal permanent files, you can see them in the folder like every other file, so one thinks no evil......

After the shit happened, i reminded myself (late, but still) a tutorial that I saw long time ago, i think it was Hands on Kontakt, in which the author said something about this issue. He spoke of the fact, that
NI needs to change this misbehaviour. The routine deletion of the previous edits but the last one simply should not be.
They do not end up in the recycle bin, what would make more sense, because you could move them back if needed - No, they are completely deleted from the hard drive. That sucks.

Well, this is my own fault. It was the first time ever, that K5 crashed while saving a project, that's why i didn't expect the avoidable.
I hope that this won't become future routine.....

My question to you is more belonging to Mac, that's why i didn't post it in Kontakt section:
Do you know a reliable software, which is able to restore the deleted files? Are you experienced with stuff like that?
I tried to recover some files already years ago, but at that time the used software needed days! for the job and i couldn't work with the computer during the recovery process.

You know, it's not just about a few sounds, it's about a 15 hours long work, that's why i would try a recovery. Or would you rather say that i should forget about it?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Sorry to hear of your unfortunate circumstances Alraun. I'm not a Mac user but I've heard good things about Prosoft's Data Rescue however it's not free so you would have to locate a cracked version. You should be able to find a torrent but make sure that this is not going to get you into legal trouble. Also there is OnTrack EasyRecovery and Stellar Phoenix Mac Recovery. TestDisk Data Recovery is also great but command line only.

 

as you possible know immediately after deletion the data still remains on the disk where it was, so if you don’t write anything new to the disk will help to recover your deleted files,

here is a great tut without any recovery software, it worked form me before,( i didn´t write anything new to disk).
http://www.wikihow.com/Recover-Accidentally-Deleted-Files-in-OS-X

as for software, as Catalyst said, Prosoft Data Rescue is a good option,
and i will add another one: SubRosaSoft FileSalvage.

remember, various different rec. software find different things

 

Thanks for your willingness to help me, guys.

Me2Audio,
actually, this is exactly what I did first. I didn't shut down the computer, wrote no further data to the disk and i looked at the invisibles files and folders.
.TemporaryItems and .Trashes were empty.

Btw. i have XtraFinder installed. It adds a few entries to the Finder menubar, so f.e. you can make hidden files visible with just one click. Using Terminal is more cumbersome in this matter.

Catalyst, Prosoft? Hm. The former Prosoft software for the Mac was called Drive Genius.
That was the damn software, which once scanned my computer two days long - and has found nothing of worth in the end.
But that was years ago. The follower is certainly better.
You both recommend Data Rescue 3, so i'll give it a try and keep FileSalvage in mind.
If it doesn't work, i'll start from scratch.
It's a chance to make it even better than the first time. *yes*

After the initial i just can only laugh at my own stupidity to have worked 15 hours without intermediate storage. Facepalm.
I have become careless, because I had no problems with crashing software for quite some time. Well....

 

I want to let you know the results of my attempt to restore lost audio data.
I have tried three softwares.They offer three main recovery options:

1 - deleted data from unused blocks
2 - data from damaged volumes
3 - specific file types


SubRosaSoft FileSalvage:
Deleted Files Scan didn't work in my case. I had to choose a volume first, but
FileSalvage didn't indicate them. The list window remains empty.
Specific Files Scan worked (Full disk scan only).
Duration: 8 hours (1TB HD) High CPU.
Result: 224.110 restorable wav files found ,
listed without a filename or time of origin.

Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery:
Deleted Files Scan. Very high CPU!
The software lets you watch at once deleted pictures during the scan.
Hey, wasn't there a skin made by Kook? Lol.
Result: none. The software crashed in the middle of scanning.

Prosoft Data Rescue 3:
Deleted Files Scan. Moderate CPU.
Duration: 2 hours (200GB empty disk space)
Result: 65.000 restorable wav files found (65GB),
also listed by sequence numbers only.

Conclusion: i recommend Data Rescue 3. But the software doesn't make it all.
After the scanning you have to look/listen through the files and sort out the ones manually that you finally want to have back.
With a result like this, the process of sorting would become a time-consuming marathon. I don't want to do that. *no*
Am i supposed to laugh or cry? I opt for the laugh. I think, i have learned my lesson...

 

Alraun there might be an app that does it better, I will look into it to see if I can find something for you. However you may not want to be paralyzed in the interim and choose to just move on. It's up to you, let me know. Also are you using the Advanced Mode for Data Rescue as opposed to the quick scan, it should find the hierarchy and naming if it hasn't been overwritten. And thanks so much for the review, only you could turn your own question into a helpful comparison of recovery software my friend.