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

Moved files, completely lost!

Apr 7, 2015 6:55PM PDT

Hello everyone,

Yesterday I copied a bunch of videos from my phone to my computer in order to save space on my phone. They were quite big videos and were 12GB in total. Everything went fine and they were moved normally, and I was even watching the videos after they were moved.

Today I opened the folder to find a video, only to see that the whole folder which I placed them in has disappeared. I even checked my hard disk space and it was as if the videos were never even copied. All the videos were wiped off my phone because I thought everything was okay. I'm really upset because I really wanted these videos and I don't understand how they can be just completely wiped from my computer without me deleting them purposely.

I tried to go back to a restore point but there wasn't any back up or restore point at that moment.

Can anyone please explain to me what might have happened and if it's possible to restore the videos that I copied?

Thank you

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
Re: lost videos
Apr 7, 2015 7:18PM PDT

You didn't make a backup after copying? Not making a backup generally is interpreted as "no problem if I lose it". So no problem?

System restore is only for system files (and amazingly, sometimes it works), not for your own data. So nothing wrong there.

Kees

- Collapse -
lost videos
Apr 7, 2015 10:20PM PDT

I was actually going to back them up on my dropbox before copying them to my computer, but when everything seemed fine after I copied them on my computer I forgot to back them up. I just want to know what went wrong. I don't understand how files that were moved to a folder, can (along with the folder itself) be completely deleted on their own.

- Collapse -
Answer
As noted, restore won't help user files.
Apr 7, 2015 8:22PM PDT

If these are .avi, then search for all *.avi files and sort by date. May take a while on some machines.
Bob

- Collapse -
Nope they weren't .avi
Apr 7, 2015 10:21PM PDT

I did a search in all of my hard disk but nothing to be found. Thanks for the suggestion though

- Collapse -
Re: not avi
Apr 7, 2015 10:38PM PDT

Bob took it for granted that you were smart enough to search for *.mp4 if it were .mp4 files (and so on). Did you?

Kees

- Collapse -
..
Apr 8, 2015 4:43AM PDT

As a matter of fact, I did. Nothing found.

- Collapse -
Adjust the search as needed.
Apr 8, 2015 1:31AM PDT

Good hunting.
Bob

- Collapse -
OK, search fails. Command line search follows.
Apr 8, 2015 5:15AM PDT

Open a CMD window. For MP4 files I'd use this command:

DIR \*.MP4 /A/S/P

If lucky you may find them where search didn't search.
Bob

- Collapse -
Answer
Recovery Software
May 22, 2015 5:59AM PDT

Did you try searching for the lost files with a recovery software, like Recuva?