Files lost when burning to CD-- HELP!

December 19, 2005 7:24 PM

Help! I (well, my boyfriend, actually) just burned a CD a lost all his files!

The BF just spent all night shooting photos of a project. The camera had little memory and battery, so he'd shoot 9, load them on the computer, shoot more. Then he had all the good ones in a folder.

He clicked "Move this file" in the "File and Folder Tasks" box to the left of preview (this is Windows XP professional, by the way) and selected to move the folder to the CD-RW Drive.

A few error message popped up-- something about the thumbnails possible not transferring properly and then something, which we assumed was related and unimportant about skipping that file-- we clicked through both of them, thinking that the worst that could happen would be that the CD wouldn't burn.

But no... not only did the CD not burn correctly, the files are GONE GONE GONE. I know, I know, we should have selected "copy" not "move" or whatever, but you don't expect this kind of tradgedy! We've looked everywhere on the harddrive.

ANY possibility that these files are retrievable?

posted by lalalana to Computers & Internet (13 answers total)

So when you click on the CD drive with no CD in it there is nothing listed as ready to be written?
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:31 PM on December 19, 2005

Response by poster: Okay, yeah, forgot that part of the story and was just about to add it. We did that, and it seemed like it was writing, but then got, burned on the CD, his folder with no files in it.
posted by lalalana at 7:33 PM on December 19, 2005

Probably. When XP deletes files, they still exist on the harddrive, it just removes their entry from the file system. A file recovery utility like r-studio will allow you to recover them.

The demo version will show what files could be recovered, so you know if it's worth shelling out for.

There may be cheaper alternatives as well.
posted by justkevin at 7:34 PM on December 19, 2005

Response by poster: I ran the demo for winun-delete to no avail. Will try the r-studio next.
posted by lalalana at 7:36 PM on December 19, 2005

Response by poster: Ack! R-studio demo won't write to the computer...
Error Opening File for writing

We're at a university computer lab for his grad program, so though he has the key to be in here, we don't have admin access, FWIW.
posted by lalalana at 7:39 PM on December 19, 2005

Response by poster: And the admin people won't be back until after the new year.
posted by lalalana at 7:43 PM on December 19, 2005

If you only spent all night shooting them, perhaps you should consider getting a start on reshooting them. From experience I can tell you that the "do over" generally takes less time than the first time around.
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:48 PM on December 19, 2005

Response by poster: You're right. Too bad we've already taken down the fancy lights (borrowed) and the camera (borrowed) is out of batteries. Sigh... Oh well. That's life, no?

Thanks all!
posted by lalalana at 7:52 PM on December 19, 2005

Response by poster: (My last comment should not imply that we are no longer accepting suggestions...)
posted by lalalana at 7:56 PM on December 19, 2005

Since the expert suggestions seem to be slow in coming and you seem to be tinkering in the meantime, I'll toss this out there: My understanding is that the files aren't actually "erased" until they are overwritten with new data -- so if they're important files, I wouldn't be downloading a bunch of demo software right now.
posted by cribcage at 8:36 PM on December 19, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks again, all. Maybe this'll be a good resource for the next sucker who searches it. In the meantime, we did the whole thing over. SC was right... it didn't take that long at all.
posted by lalalana at 9:08 PM on December 19, 2005

Another aside for future readers looking for data recovery options, I've had great luck with the free PC Inspector File Recovery software, rescuing files off a severely defunct drive which had corrupted all its partition tables.
posted by drumcorpse at 10:36 PM on December 19, 2005

Complete stab in the dark: try looking in C:\Documents and Settings\[your username or all users]\Local Settings\Temp and anywhere else you find a Temp folder. Check for jpg files, or temporary files of about the right size and the right time/date, and try copying them somwhere else, rename to .jpg and opening them. Windows might have left copies there. Absolute guess on my part.

Save all your work and close all applications first.
posted by alasdair at 6:38 AM on December 20, 2005