Truly deleted?

[catnamedog]

Hi
On the 1st December, I recorded some really important video that I now want to produce in evidence. I thought I'd exported all the important bits, but it seems that I didn't. So this is my question;
VDV records onto my external 1Tb HDD. Are old video's truly deleted after about 48 hours (as quoted in your help files), or is there some way I can get onto the HDD and find the ones I didn't export? It could be that the directory entry is deleted rather than the actual file - I hope!
Again, this problem is due to my stupidity rather than anything wrong with VDV.

[Semper Vaporo]

It is conceivable that the data is still present on the HDD. There are several programs (free and $) that claim to be able to recover deleted files. A Google search for "recover deleted files" will present several to you.

Of course every time a new file is created (and sometimes when it is merely overwritten with identical data) an "unused" spot on the drive is the place where it is written and thus what was there is destroyed. So the chances of recovering old data lessens with each passing minute as VDV continues to create new data and as the Operating System updates tables and such in the act of maintaining the system.

The act of "Installing" a program to recover data might overwrite the data that is sought. I'd recommend getting a program that is stand-alone on a memory stick, or boot to a different HDD and access the data drive from it. If your 1TB drive was dedicated to VDV data then that may not be necessary.

It has been YEARS since i have done data recovery on a FAT formated drive and I have never done it on an NTFS or anything on a MAC, so I don't know how easy it is now with the automated programs available today.

Good luck!

[ryan]

If the video was only in cache and not saved by a rule, and your cache period has passed, unless VDV was not running the video was in fact deleted. Sorry.