Tao Effect Forums

Hi, I've searched the forum and cannot find an answer so I decided to start my own thread.

Here's my situation: I recently experienced a devastating hard drive failure on my early 2008 MacBook. My hard drive was longer able to mount and I had to have everything recovered manually. They sent back my data on an external hard drive. When I restored to my laptop (with a new internal HDD), I noticed that my Espionage'd folder was now an alias. I'm wondering if they were not able to recover the data that was encrypted. I do have the backup files created by Espionage but I have not been able to restore them. Is there a way I can restore these 'database' files? I've tried everything on Espionage but I'm wondering if there is some sort of 3rd party software I can use to get my files back. Also, on the external hard drive, there was a folder called "EspionageMounts" in the Volumes folder. My Espionage'd folder was in there but there is nothing in the folder (including invisible files).

Please help!
Thanks in advance!

Hi there,

Sorry to hear of your data-crisis situation! We'll do our best to help you out.

Ignore the EspionageMounts folder, it is irrelevant for our purposes. If you're interested about it, .

What version of Espionage and OS X are you using? is appropriate for OS X prior to Lion, and is appropriate for Lion.

Once you've verified that you have the correct version of Espionage installed, try opening Espionage and simply dragging the alias files onto Espionage. If for "Choose Encryption:" it says "Already Encrypted", you're good to go, just enter the password of that folder.

Otherwise, have a look at our documentation on or .

Hi Greg,
I'm using version 2.8.10, as I am running on Leopard. When I dragged the alias file into Espionage, it said "Bad Owner: This folder must be owned by [me]. It is owned by root." This is probably because the files came from the restored data on the external hard drive. I've tried using your tutorials on how to restore from an Espionage backup, but they don't seem to be much help. The "how to restore from Espionage backup" seems to lack on directions. It shows how to find the folder, but doesn't seem to give any further instruction after that, except for emails or non-espionage'd folders. What do I do once I locate the backup folder?

"Bad owner" is a permission related error that can be fixed using a utility called BatChmod. Try the to change the owner of the folder to your username (and check the box to apply the new permissions to subfolders).

That didn't work. I also tried the alternative method with no avail. Were there any boxes in BatChmod that I should've left checked/unchecked? Should I have quit BatChmod before starting Espionage again? It is still giving me the same bad owner error.

To clarify, in the attempt above, I dragged the LaunchAgents folder into BatChmod. I also tried my alias'ed folder but in BatChmod it says the file/folder doesn't seem to exist.... is this bad news? Is there anything else I can do with the backups?

I dragged LaunchAgents folder because the tutorial link you posted said to. When I drag my alias file it into BatChmod it still says bad owner in Espionage. How can I get files from the alias? You are telling me a few different things.

I do not need to restore from a disk image.

Your backup tutorial is unclear. It shows me where the backup files are but then there is no help after that except for emails or non-espionage'd folders. Please tell me what to do after I locate the backup files. I don't have a backed up folder, but I'm trying to restore from the "database" files (they have no extension)

Thanks for all your help Greg, but I think this is a lost cause. I don't have my encrypted folder anymore because I believe the recovery company could not access my encrypted folder? Not sure. The espionage'd folder is no longer there, it was replaced with the alias file. When I drag it into Espionage, it says bad owner and BatChmod doesn't seem to work on alias files. So am I out of luck?