Deleted files

[purpleski]

Hi

I copied several directories from my portable drive to my made harddrive expecting that I would be asked if I wanted to replace the directories.

But

I was not and I have overwritten the photos directory on the main drive which had photographs that are more recent than those on my portable drive.

Is there away of recovering them?

Thanks.

 

[SYAR2003]

aughh ...
Everyone that's copying ..reinstalling...
Before doing anything ,,,
copy from :
c:\documents and settings\"your name"\... "My documents"

c:\documents and settings\"your name"
copy everything...

(before you do it, goto in explorer :
tools - folder options - view - check "show hidden files and folders&quot

copy everything from your ..
c:\documents and settings\"your name"to another location of the harddisk..


SYAR

 

[purpleski]

Yes Syar I know that - that is not the problem I have already copied over the directory and want to know whether there is a way of getting these files back - not how stupid I have been I already know that.

By the way the advice does not work if your documents are on a different drive.

 

[mattjurado]

1. Are the pictures worth a lot of money?
Yes, go seek someone to do professional recovery, and shut that drive off, don't start it up again.

No, try a third party utility, you'll have to pay, but not nearly as expensive as recovery. Do a google search, and ask questions, such as success rate of recovering image files...
Again, I'd shut that drive off.

Matt J.

 

[purpleski]

Thanks Matt but in theory it MAY be possible?

Regards.

 

[bcastner]

Hope someone can help me with this issue, as in various forms I have seen it pop up here and elsewhere.

I understand that the OS treats a copy operation differently (as well as delete and some other features) depending on whether the drive letter is different between source and target.

But I have never been able to duplicate this problem.

Lets say on Drives C & D I have:

TestFolder
TestSubfolder

And scatter some files.

I then in Explorer drop "TestFolder" from D: to C: "TestFolder"

I do not see an unprompted wholescale replacement of the Folder, subfolder and all contents.

Similarly, from a command session I cannot replicate this problem.

How are you doing the copy?

 

[purpleski]

Sorry don't understand?

 

[mattjurado]

Yes it is possible, but generally I've found image files and database files are the two that are very expensive to get back. Word docs and excel spreadsheets are much easier to recover.

Matt J.

 

[pweegar]

Look in the folder where you copied to. Are there any files with an extension of .bak? I am assuming you have files with the same name that were copied. You SHOULD have been prompted to overwrite the name or at the very least the old files should have been renamed with a different extension. Do you have any hidden folders? With what you did, it doesn't make any sense that you weren't prompted to over write existing files.

In the future, I HIGHLY suggest you make backups first of your most recent files that you need to keep. Copy them to either 1) a Cd or DVD 2) A zip drive or 3)at the very least a different subfolder.

There are programs out there that will recover data. One is the newest version of System Mechanic. (Free for 30 days, then runs about $70.) However, once you write to the drive, that data becomes muvh more difficult, if not impossible to recover.

 

[bcastner]

Matt J,

How is it possible?

Bill

 

[mattjurado]

There are a number of companies and utilities that recover data, again, its been my experience that you're pretty much screwed, unless you have a big corporate wallet.

Matt J.

 

[bcastner]

Matt,

I was asking about how is it possible to completely replace a folder on a different drive with the command copy.

I just see no simple way to screw this up.

 

[purpleski]

Thanks Pweegar I will give it a try.