Hard drive failure

Started by rolyat2654, October 14, 2011, 12:52:29 PM

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rolyat2654

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!

greg

#1
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, read this.

What version of Espionage and OS X are you using? Espionage 2.8.10 is appropriate for OS X prior to Lion, and 2.8.13 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 restoring from backups or manually from a disk image.
Follow @espionageapp@twitter.com or @espionage@mstdn.io for news and updates!

rolyat2654

#2
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?

greg

#3
"Bad owner" is a permission related error that can be fixed using a utility called BatChmod. Try the instructions mentioned here to change the owner of the folder to your username (and check the box to apply the new permissions to subfolders).
Follow @espionageapp@twitter.com or @espionage@mstdn.io for news and updates!

rolyat2654

#4
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.

rolyat2654

#5
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?

greg

#6
Quote from: "rolyat2654"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'm not sure why you were dragging the LaunchAgents folders, the folder that would be dragged onto BatChmod would be the folder that you're trying to re-add back into Espionage, and it would be a folder, not an alias. Aliases are folders or files that have a little arrow icon on the bottom left (they are actually just files, but can be aliases to folders).

All of the information on restoring from various backup methods is located here:

http://www.taoeffect.com/espionage/Espi ... ackup.html

We also have a troubleshooting document on how to restore manually from a disk image:

http://www.taoeffect.com/espionage/Espi ... oring.html
Follow @espionageapp@twitter.com or @espionage@mstdn.io for news and updates!

rolyat2654

#7
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)

greg

#8
Quote from: "rolyat2654"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.

My apologies for the confusion, the link I gave you contained instructions for someone experiencing issues with the LaunchAgents folder. I did not mean that you use the same folder, just follow the numbered instructions that are listed there, but in your case you would be fixing the permissions on the folder that you're attempting to re-add to Espionage.

QuoteYour 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)

OK, I think there is some confusion here, and I'll try my best to help clear the air of it. The "database" file is not important for our situation here. This is the file that resides in Espionage's Application Support folder, and it is used by Espionage to keep track of what folders are encrypted. Without this file, Espionage doesn't know what folders you've told it to encrypt. We can completely reset Espionage in a way that gets rid of this file, and then work on re-adding back in all the individual folders that you had encrypted, to re-build the database file.

The reset instructions are here.

Prior to resetting Espionage, make a note of what folders you had encrypted encrypted, and if you had run any application templates. Once you've reset Espionage, as explained in the link above, you'll need to re-add all the individual folders you had encrypted and re-run any application templates (for example, the Mail application template if you had Mail's data encrypted) using the same password that you used last time to encrypt the application's data.

If you have any backups, follow the restoration instructions in Espionage's documentation for the backups.

http://www.taoeffect.com/espionage/Espi ... ackup.html
Follow @espionageapp@twitter.com or @espionage@mstdn.io for news and updates!

rolyat2654

#9
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?

greg

#10
Quote from: "rolyat2654"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?

There's one more thing you can try: try to see if you can find the invisible disk image anywhere, either in the parent folder of the folder that you had encrypted, or in Time Machine (in the same location: the parent folder). To understand what I mean by this, please have a look at this document. You'll need to download iVisible to show invisible files.

If you can find it (say your folder was called "Secret", it would be called ".Secret.sparsebundle" or ".Secret.sparseimage"), then you can follow the manual restore instructions I mentioned earlier:

http://www.taoeffect.com/espionage/Espi ... oring.html
Follow @espionageapp@twitter.com or @espionage@mstdn.io for news and updates!