Writer Marnie Walters (27) said police quickly located one of three laptops and the hard drive stolen from her Northeast Valley villa last month.
As police had recovered the items, the $1000 reward she had offered in an Otago Daily Times article was no longer valid.
A police spokeswoman said two men, aged 22 and 27, had been charged with two Northeast Valley burglaries last month and would appear in the Dunedin District Court.
The alleged burglaries included that at the Islington St villa she shares with partner Christopher Ashton and one in Evans St.
Property worth more than $6500 was recovered, she said.
In addition, a 21-year-old woman had been charged with receiving a stolen laptop.
Ms Walters said the article on the burglary had been shared on social media nearly 4500 times and she had received several messages of support, which had restored her faith in humanity.
''We have scumbags who didn't care for other people and their belongings and we have had nearly 4500 people who have cared. So our view of humanity hasn't been dented.''
The data on the returned hard-drive and laptop had been deleted, including the 50,000-word life story of Dunedin artist Tanya Faiva.
The story details the artist's life growing up in Dunedin and discovering she had Friedreich's ataxia - a condition that causes progressive damage to the nervous system.
Recovering the data has started and already a ''minimal amount'' of data had been retrieved.
Ms Faiva had saved a ''rough draft'' of her life story and Ms Walters had started editing it on the computer replaced by insurance.
If the story was recovered it would save her six months' work.
''Tanya has a degenerative condition and her goal is to have the story published before she dies ... we will be a lot closer to achieving that goal if we recover the edited version.''
The deleted data also included photos which were intended to raise $20,000 for a mobility van for Dunedin girl Amber Daisley (9), who had cerebral palsy, Ms Walters said.
Her partner, Christopher Ashton (26), also had a laptop stolen in the burglary but it had not been recovered yet. It had photos of his late brother on it.
''The photos of my brother are on my mum's computer in Timaru. I figured if they were in two different houses then they'd be safe.''
He was happy with the police response and that their landlord had latches installed on the villa's windows, Mr Ashton said.
