Oh my God, lifes work was deleted!

<p>I had been backing up by deleting the 'Pictures' folder from my Western Digital external hard drive.<br>

Then, I would take the whole 'Pictures' folder again from my desktop and just copy it to the WD again.<br>

This was always faster than dealing with the endless conflicts that arose when copying over existing files.<br>

But this time, even though I was sure that the 'I' drive was the one I was working on (deleting from), when I went back to my regular 'C' drive, the 'Pictures' folder and all my work was missing from that too.<br>

I went to the recycle bin but on some of the last individual files were there. Not the 'Pictures' folder.<br>

What can I do? Anything?<br>

Oh my God<br>

Bob</p>

<p>I understand that deleted files are still on you computer until new files are saved (written over). There are ways to recover these. Probably best to get professional help with file recovery and not to use the computer at all in the meantime. Good luck!</p>

<p>Very sorry to hear this and I'm afraid I cannot make any very helpful suggestions as to recovery of the files, other than maybe open 'my computer' and do a search for *.jpg to see if you have copies elsewhere on the PC and double-check that recycle bin - it may have stored the pictures but not obviously as a 'pictures' folder.<br>

Your previous backup method was pretty unsafe and I hope the following suggestions will help prevent this for you and others in the future:<br>

Keep 'generations' of backup rather than a single - i.e. each backup should not overwrite the last one, but the one a few generations before.<br>

If you create a set of high level folders, e.g. FOLDER1, FOLDER2 etc then each backup should go into an empty folder so you won't get any conflicts.<br>

Keep 2 copies of backups, e.g. one on the external HDD, one burned permanently onto DVD.<br>

As you have discovered you should never delete a previous backup until you have a tested new backup.<br>

I would also tend to keep pictures in a folder other than 'pictures' (sounds crazy but the pictures folder Windows sets up has it's own inbuilt peculiarities, so storing in a folder of your own making gives you more control over it)</p>

<p>Whatever you do, DON'T DO ANYTHING! Do NOT let anything write to any of your hard drives. Your backup strategy is terrible, but I expect you know that by now. I THINK that what you did was to MOVE the 'Pictures' folder to the 'I' drive rather than copying it. This is actually not easy to do, but it is possible. What you need to do first is to look carefully on your external drive to see if there are any 'mystery' files there. If not, you need to run recovery software on the external drive. Safest thing to do would be to run the recovery software from a flash drive, so that you don't touch your 'C'drive. This is likely to work, since you have only deleted from the external, not reformatted. There are a number of free recovery softwares out there, but I might invest in a good one.</p>

<p>What Les said. STOP USING THIS COMPUTER (every action you take, like surfing the web) could be overwriting otherwise recoverable files. Borrow another computer to do your web surfing and any research/shopping you need to do for a utility along these lines, and then be very thoughtful about how you proceed (meaning, follow the directions, carefully). </p>

<p>right DO NOT USE THAT PC<br>

if yopu have another similar pc running that operating system if you install<br>

a free program called ( recuva )_ on the OTHER PC<br>

and connect the drives from the " hard luck" pc one at a time<br>

you may ne able to undelete you lost and erased files<br>

http://recuva.software.en.softonic.com/download?gclid=CI7TorDWwaYCFYHb4Aodshf2Hw<br>

it is easy to find.<br>

again do not use or try this on your pc</p>

<p>right DO NOT USE THAT PC<br>

if yopu have another similar pc running that operating system if you install<br>

a free program called ( recuva )_ on the OTHER PC<br>

and connect the drives from the " hard luck" pc one at a time<br>

you may ne able to undelete you lost and erased files<br>

http://recuva.software.en.softonic.com/download?gclid=CI7TorDWwaYCFYHb4Aodshf2Hw<br>

it is easy to find.<br>

again do not use or try this on your pc</p>

<p>always always make a backup BEFORE trashing anything... im sure you now know that also.</p>

<p>2 not really expensive EXTERNAL drive is better than 1 INTERNAL / EXTERNAL.</p>

<p>Im sure theres a lot of free / pay software to find back your file... but im on a Mac.. dont know of any name in the PC world.. sorry for your lost.</p>

<p>Crap, I just did a system restore. Have I made yet another mistake? Is it now worse?</p>

<p>I am really sorry to hear this and hope that you manage to recover all of it. I lost a lot of important pictures around 2003, pictures that had a lot of meaning for me, so I sympathise.</p>

<p>A system restore per se has no impact on data stored, but as others have said already - STOP using that computer and don't run any programs until you know what happened to your files.</p>

<p>Oh, man - everybody's worst nightmare.</p>

<p>There are some clues here. If you did not find your My Pictures file in the Recycle bin, or get the pop-up banner warning that the file is too big for the Recycle Bin and asks you to verify that you want to delete it completely, it's probably not deleted but moved somewhere, as Les said. You can do a search on your entire computer without any risk. Go to Computer, open the C drive then search for the folder name. If you don't find it, do the same thing with the I drive. I'm betting that the file got moved, possibly to another folder on either drive. Also, if you had any other drives running when it all hit the fan, search them, too.</p>

<p>And, in the future, never, never, ever delete a file from one location before ensuring that it's safely relocated!</p>

<p>Hope this works out OK for you...</p>

But I did get the "too big for recycle bin" alert. Does that mean it's truly gone?

<p>Deletion just sets a marker that the space on the disk is now available for something new. As all of them, me too, say, do NOT do anything on this computer/HD. Given where you are and how you got there, take or send this drive to a professional file recovery outfit.</p>

<p>Turn that computer OFF and leave it OFF until you've developed a reasonable recovery strategy.</p>

<p>What operating system are you running?</p>

<p>Then consider the primary rule of all backup strategies:<br>

DO NOT DELETE ANYTHING until you've made a new clean backup and verified its integrity. That's the whole reason for doing backups in the first place.</p>

<p>- Leigh</p>

<p>"But I did get the "too big for recycle bin" alert. Does that mean it's truly gone?"</p>

<p>Was that when you deleted it from the I drive, or when you attempted to copy from C to I? I would expect that when deleting very large files from the I drive, but not otherwise.</p>

<p>In any case, if you go for professional recovery, take both drives in. Files that are possibly corrupted on one drive may be recoverable from the other.</p>

<p><strong>Bob: </strong>I hope you are NOT using the same computer to talk to us. You are NOT 'getting it' if you are. Writing to your hard drives may make it IMPOSSIBLE at any cost to recover your files. If you did hit the 'Delete Anyway' button, the files can still be recovered as long as they are NOT overwritten. </p>

<p>First, I am using a separate laptop for communications now.<br>

I never got to the 'send to' part of sending my 'C' drive files to the 'I' drive. That's what has me nuts.<br>

I deleted from the 'I' drive but when I went to view the 'C' drive to navigate to the folder and files, the 'Pictures' folder was gone too.<br>

I have researched some recover software and found something that CNet rated highly from VirtualLab.<br>

Are most of you in agreement that doing this should not be pursued as a tactic and the professional 'Geek Boys' or whatever is the best route to take?<br>

Thanks, Bob</p>

<p>Had a similar thing happen a couple years ago. Fortunately I shoot mostly film, so all I need to do is rescan the negatives and slides. Many of my digital files are online (smugmug) so the valuable ones are saved too. </p>

<p>Alas, if you did a system restore, you are probably not going to see the files again. I would stop using the computer at once and consult a recover expert.</p>

<p>OK, that's one for 'the files might still be there' after the system restore and one, 'gone forever'. Also found an updated review for recovery software called Digital Rescue Premium that was rated pretty highly.<br>

Crap.</p>

<p>Do not take any action that will write to the hard drive on the compromised machine. Turn it off and give it to a professional recovery service.</p>

<p>They'll remove the hard drive and put it on a special diagnostic system in a "read-only" mode, so whatever data exists cannot be over-written. Then they'll copy the drive contents to a new drive and attempt to recover what they can.</p>

<p>Any recovery software you might find must be installed on the compromised computer in order for it to work in the first place. This violates the rule about not writing to the compromised hard drive. Don't do it.</p>

<p>Many people here have told you the same thing. If you're unwilling to accept their advice, why did you ask for it in the first place?</p>

<p>- Leigh</p>

<p>I am listening Leigh. A big part of my world just vanished so I'm obviously a bit anxious to say the least. I'll find a place to take it to and hope for the best.<br>

Thanks for everybody's input.</p>

<p>Just did a back up of all my images, documents and custom app presets to my external firewire hard drive. Last backup was six months ago. </p>

<p>Thanks for posting this, Bob. You lit a fire under my arse!</p>

<p>I use NTFS Undelete Plus. You'll be able to get most of it back if you haven't had too much activity on your pc. Please start burning dvd's. I can not stress this enough to people. It's easy to fill a memory card up, drag it to the desktop, and burn a dvd.</p>

 

<p>Terrific, glad I could help Tim.</p>