Deleted files from trash 2 days back. Can I still recover or data got overwritten?

[WilliamFletcher]

My trash size exceeded and I emptied it without a second thought. Used the drive for 2 days (though no files copied just some downloaded from the web). I had some important files in trash. Are they still recoverable or data might have got replaced? How can I check and recover them?

[apizz]

@WilliamFletcher Not going to ask why important files were in the trash ... do you have "Empty Trash Securely" enabled? If not, the data may be recoverable.

Your best bet would software like Data Rescue. As part of its features, Data Rescue can search areas on your drive marked as "free space" to see what files may exist. That's really the only possible way you could see about getting that data back. If your computer has already written other data to those sectors though, you'll be out of luck.

Sorry guy :/

[Nix4Life]

+1 on Data Rescue

[WilliamFletcher]

Thanks aporlebeke for your valuable response, I tried Data Rescue but it doesn’t complete the scan; gets stuck half way. I wonder if my HD have bad sectors? Later, tried Stellar Phoenix Mac Data Recovery and it successfully created an image of my drive. It has found lots of files from the dmg file. I will be recovering it and I guess also need to replace the HDD sooner than later. Should I go for 256 GB SSD or WD My Passport for Mac 500GB Portable External Hard Drive?

[sdagley]

@WilliamFletcher If you're replacing a spindle drive, an SSD upgrade is definitely the way to go. Just make sure you implement a backup strategy by the time you switch as deleted file recovery is basically not an option with SSDs.

[WilliamFletcher]

Ok, I will having the older HDD replaced by the 256 GB SSD and another 1 TB for Time Machine backup. Anything else good for my backup?