What happened???
October 24, 2019 7:27 PM Subscribe
Windows 10. I was in a directory, looking at files and other directories. I wanted to delete a file, but I inadvertently deleted a directory.
No problem, I thought, I'll Undo. But undo was not available. OK, I thought, I'll fish it out of the Trash. But it wasn't there. I went to the command prompt and looked for it recursively, starting with C:\. Nothing (I looked the same way for a file I knew still existed, and found it, so I know I wasn't just looking the wrong way). Where did it go? I understand that for some large directories (this one was around 60 G), moving to the Trash is not possible, but when that's the case, isn't a warning given first?
What happened to my directory and is there any way I can get it back?
No problem, I thought, I'll Undo. But undo was not available. OK, I thought, I'll fish it out of the Trash. But it wasn't there. I went to the command prompt and looked for it recursively, starting with C:\. Nothing (I looked the same way for a file I knew still existed, and found it, so I know I wasn't just looking the wrong way). Where did it go? I understand that for some large directories (this one was around 60 G), moving to the Trash is not possible, but when that's the case, isn't a warning given first?
What happened to my directory and is there any way I can get it back?
Are you certain it was a directory, and not a symbolic link? If it were a symlink, the behavior you describe would make sense, if the link's target directory had a different name than the link itself. In this case, searching for a file you know to be in that directory would work...
posted by Rat Spatula at 8:56 PM on October 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Rat Spatula at 8:56 PM on October 24, 2019 [2 favorites]
To recover files, provided you haven't made extensive (over)writes to your disk since, I would look into the free version of Recuva. Download and install it onto a USB key or something so you don't write to the disk where you lost data. Then scan.
posted by Quagkapi at 3:52 AM on October 25, 2019
posted by Quagkapi at 3:52 AM on October 25, 2019
It's possible that the warning was displayed and you dismissed it. When you delete something, the confirmation dialog will ask "Are you sure you want move this [file|folder] to the Recycle Bin?". When you permanently delete it, the confirmation dialog looks (nearly) identical, but instead says "Are you sure you want to permanently delete this [file|folder]?". From personal experience, if you are expecting one, and get the other, it's incredibly easy to confirm without realizing the difference until too late.
Seconding the recommendation of immediately stopping all other use of the computer, and using a file recovery tool to try to recover it from disk.
posted by yuwtze at 7:45 AM on October 25, 2019
Seconding the recommendation of immediately stopping all other use of the computer, and using a file recovery tool to try to recover it from disk.
posted by yuwtze at 7:45 AM on October 25, 2019
You might have done accidental drag-n-drop, and the folder may be in another folder. This is extremely common.
Otherwise, use Recuva.
Let us know how things work out.
posted by theora55 at 11:39 AM on October 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
Otherwise, use Recuva.
Let us know how things work out.
posted by theora55 at 11:39 AM on October 25, 2019 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Never found it. Tried Recuva, didn't find it. Didn't find a TRACE. It's like those files had never existed. Oh well, thanks for your help. At least there was nothing important out there.
posted by ubiquity at 7:34 AM on November 25, 2019
posted by ubiquity at 7:34 AM on November 25, 2019
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Was this directory on a network share?
(Though, either one of those normally give you an are-you-sure? as well...)
posted by Rat Spatula at 8:36 PM on October 24, 2019 [1 favorite]