Hi, I did not have time machine on as I did not know it was exist.
First, As I was aware, the RAW photos were stored on my external hard drive, and I trashed the ones in Aperture library and emptied my iMac trash while external was plugged in. However, I looked into my external HD, I found my Raw pictures were deleted too! What the hell was happening? How do I get them back?
Please help.
Nsk,
Ouch. When you delete photos in Aperture that are referenced, it asks you if you want to move the referenced files to the system trash as well. You must have clicked yes. There are three levels of security and unfortunately it appears that you bypassed each of them. First it asks if you want to move them to the trash, then when you empty the Aperture trash it only empty that but does NOT empty the system trash, and finally the third level is that the files are still safely in your system trash… however if you emptied the trash, then they were deleted.
THe good news is that, especially since it's an external hard drive, it should be relatively easy to recover the data. DO NOT USE THAT DRIVE FOR ANYTHING ELSE right now. Either purchase software or send the drive to a service. If you google “data recover mac” you'll find many options, ranging from free to expensive. I don't have much experience with these apps or services so you'll need to read some reviews and make a decision on what to use.
Good luck.
@PhotoJoseph
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