Shit!
Doubleshit!
I did something real stupid: when I got my new laptop, I had to re-setup my Time Machine backup drive. I had just transferred all my files on the new machine and the same files were still sitting on my old laptop. So I had no concerns to quickly open Disk Utility and erase the backup drive.
I had just forgotten one thing: apart from the backup folder, this disk also carried a few other folders which I had put there when disk space go tight on my main drive. Mainly nothing too important. But there were also my two iPhoto libraries. Both several gigabyte heavy with all my photos from the years 2000 to 2007 (which is when I moved my photo processing to Lightroom).
And that hurts.
I only realized this after I had started to re-use the drive for backups and had travelled to Europe. I was sitting there in Germany and it hit me: Shit, I thought. And then: Shit! Shit! Shit!
How could I have been so stupid?
When I was back in Singapore, I did not backup anything from the last 4 weeks and started my search for a software that might be able to recover at least some of the files. I tried different packages, and quite honestly: they all stink! Then my next mistake: I ran an analysis with Disk Drill and half way through the analysis I thought that some pictures of the iPhoto archives were popping up. So I mindlessly paid for an activation code, so I could recover them.
Stupid! – I was 79 Euro down and then realized that Disk Drill only had found images which were not from these archives and which I had elsewhere, too. I finally remembered also, that iPhoto does not store the jpg files in simple folders but rather in an actual archive, which shows as one big file in the Finder. And Disk Drill cannot recover these (by the way: worst support ever! – I cannot recommend Disk Drill or any software from Cleverfiles…).
I think I have tried now 5 or 6 different software packages and they all were not able to find anything useful. I guess my chances to get something back are anyhow close to zero with the iPhoto archives being handled by the system as one big file. Even if I found pieces of it, buried under backups from beginning December, it’s unlikely anything can be recovered.
Shit!
I will sleep over it, but I guess I have lost these 5000 or 6000 photos - including lots of photos of family, friends, colleagues and my first steps into digital photography. Some of them are luckily frozen in this blog, albeit in low resolution. I’ll miss many nice memories from trips to Istanbul, Dresden and San Francisco for sure. And my stunning jellyfish photo! Aaaaargh!
Shit!
Shit!
Shit!
