Just five years ago there were not a handful of viable Mac data recovery products on the market. There were several reasons for this. One was that the system used by the Mac operating system to catalog files was completely different and incompatible with the one used by Windows. This system known as the type/creator allowed for very smooth and quick access from direct storage to specific applications. However it did make creation of universal Mac applications far more difficult. The unique file structure of proprietary Mac files made development of programs to recover Mac information almost impossible to create.
Changes in the Mac operating system leading up to Mac OS X have allowed premier data recovery companies to design programs that are able to recognize the file structures inherent in Mac code and from them reconstruct lost, damaged or deleted files. In choosing a program to recover Mac files double check to make sure the program you buy recognizes both Mac OS X and all earlier versions of the Mac operating system.