Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

How to recover lost files from transfering Local Disc to USB

Feb 8, 2015 7:04PM PST

Hi,

I need an urgent help.
I was transferring my data from the Local Disc to my USB Flash driver.
I selected the folder i wanted to transfer by using the command "Cut-Paste", and the terrible thing happened ,, the folder was copied BUT it was empty.
I went back to Local Disc (at the original place of the folder) but there was no folder there.
So I have the folder in my Flash driver but nothing inside of it ,,
I searched in the recycle bin ,, NOTHING
I searched in the computer by typing the name of the folder ,, NOTHING

I am freaked out. Where did all my data gone? they're very important for me.

Thank you in advanced

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
Re: lost files
Feb 8, 2015 7:12PM PST

Three recommendations for the future to start with:
1. Never use cut and paste. Only use copy and paste, followed by delete.
2. Make a regular backup of files you don't want to lose.
3. Think of a USB-stick and an external disk as temporary storage, not as permanent storage. So NEVER delete a file from your hard disk if that would leave your only copy on such a device.

Now immediately remove that hard disk from your PC, put it in an external enclosure and on another PC try a file recovery program like Recuva (download from Piriform.com). There are more programs like that, but this is a good and free one to start your search with.

Kees

- Collapse -
Answer
try recuva
Feb 9, 2015 4:50AM PST

you can try using recuva and see if it will recover your files.

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

I move hundreds of files weekly and use just the "move" command in the right click and never had an issue. Most will suggest to do the "copy" when transferring files so in case of a problem, the files are still available.

- Collapse -
Answer
where did you get this USB flashdrive?
Feb 9, 2015 11:40AM PST

Google "Fake Flash" and "Ebay Fakes". Usually if you buy the flashdrive from a big box store like Staples, Office Depot, BestBuy, it's OK, or direct from manufacturer's like Kingston online. Unfortunately, there are some flash drives which are 2-8 GB and then hacked and relabeled to be higher, but what happens is anything written to them, once it's at the end, it loops back and starts overwriting what was already there. It appears you wrote it all but really all you will have, if even that, is what was the last amount of the true size of the flash drive.

So, you may have lost it all on the flashdrive. You still have the chance to recover it on the hard drive though. Cut just drops the address of where the data was, but leaves it there, opens it up to be written over later. The less you do to the drive, the more chance you have to recover your files, using recovery softwares.