OK. First I want to admit to being really stupid:o I haven't done anything like this for quite a while, but... I have trashed (and emptied the trash) my only copy of my ripped DVDs. This isn't the end of the world by any means, but it was a lot of work. That, and also I give my DVDs to the Half Moon Bay public library after I've ripped them, so reproducing them is problematic.

Despite searching I cannot find any method to recover .VOB files on a Mac, so I'm hoping one of you may know a way. The drive remains untouched since the stupidity, so if there's a way, please let me know.

Thanks!

I'm a big fan of Data Rescue II for this type of thing because it doesn't try to repair or rebuild the drive:

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

As long as you haven't touched the drive, you should be able to get your deleted content back. Is the drive in a Mac or an external enclosure? You'll need another empty drive at least as big or enough space in a volume that you can recover to.

I never thought of donating my DVD's to the library. Thanks for the idea!

I'm a big fan of Data Rescue II for this type of thing because it doesn't try to repair or rebuild the drive:

http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php

As long as you haven't touched the drive, you should be able to get your deleted content back. Is the drive in a Mac or an external enclosure? You'll need another empty drive at least as big or enough space in a volume that you can recover to.

Thanks for the suggestion. It's a great program (I actually got it), but it cannot recover .vob :(

I never thought of donating my DVD's to the library. Thanks for the idea!

I don't actually donate (such that I generate a tax deduction), I just walk in and hand 'em over. Then they put them on the shelf.

grubavs: I've recovered several drives which were full of VIDEO_TS with Data Rescue, no problem...(edited to add: but I hadn't "deleted" them like you, in my case I lost access to the entire drive after a firewire-related daisychain mishap.)

These were complete folders, ripped by MTR, so all the .IFO and .BPU files were there, maybe that makes a difference? I also had some smaller Quicktime .mov and .avi, and Data Rescue II didn't have a problem with those, either.

grubavs: I've recovered several drives which were full of VIDEO_TS with Data Rescue, no problem...(edited to add: but I hadn't "deleted" them like you, in my case I lost access to the entire drive after a firewire-related daisychain mishap.)

These were complete folders, ripped by MTR, so all the .IFO and .BPU files were there, maybe that makes a difference? I also had some smaller Quicktime .mov and .avi, and Data Rescue II didn't have a problem with those, either.

Yeah, these were complete VIDEO_TS folders also. It appears that there's something about the .VOB documents that is so variable that Data Rescue hasn't yet figured a method to track them down if they've been trashed & erased. They just can't put them back together. And none of the other docs in the VIDEO_TS folders were found either :(:(:( I think I'm out of luck, but I put this thread in just in case... the software did find a boatload of other stuff, but all of it was stuff I definitely meant to erase.