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Recovering Permanently Deleted Files

GlazeFamily3

GlazeFamily3

Peeking in everyone's windows ...
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Mar 16, 2017
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I am hoping that one of you smart tech-saavy ladies can help me.

Tonight, I went to print something from my homeschool folder in my documents and the folder was gone. I looked EVERYWHERE for it. I have searched for it in every possible area that I know to on my computer, including the recycle bin. It has literally just vanished. The only thing that I can think of is that somehow the folder got permanently deleted.

I know it is possible to recover things that have been permanently deleted but I don't even know where to start. This is an EXTREMELY important folder as all of my homeschool curriculum and anything at all pertaining to my homeschool with my daughter is in this folder.

It wouldn't be so bad if I had backed it up to my EHD as I usually do. However, when I updated my EHD a few months ago, I apparently didn't put my homeschool folder on there and there isn't an old one either.

:helpy please!
 
oh no! I'm so sorry! That must feel so stressful. :(

Did you check your EHD's trash? I'm wondering if maybe you deleted the file on your EHD, but if you haven't emptied its trash then maybe it's still in there? (Or are you sure you didn't put one on there?)

Or you might be able to check Backup and Restore, or try the "restore previous versions" option. Microsoft has steps on how to do that but IDK if you use a Mac. Hopefully there are people here who can give you more options!
 
I am on a PC using Windows 10. I am thinking I didn't add one to the EHD (I know, I know... so bad). I am trying the backup and restore and maybe I just don't get what to do, but it isn't working so far.
 
The folder was housed in my documents. If I tell documents to restore previous versions, it says there are no previous versions...
 
Oh no!
I don't know how to recover it. I would say try the 'restore previous versions' directions, but if you can't recover it that way, I got no ideas.
You don't have an online backup by chance? Or moved it to Dropbox or OneDrive?
 
I had some folders disappear once and somehow they had just all been "hidden". You might try making sure that you can see "hidden" folders...go to View and see if the box next to hidden items is checked. Not sure if that will help you, but it wouldn't hurt to check...

Capture.JPG
 
@IntenseMagic yep... not hidden unfortunately. That box is checked.

@bestcee no online backup... but if I ever find these files, they will be backed up x1000 after that.
 
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Ugh...so sorry! I know it's incredibly frustrating. If I think of anything else that might work, I'll let you know. In the meantime, I'll cross all my crossables for you!!
 
Another idea is that maybe it accidentally got moved into another folder. Try doing a search for it on your hard drive to see if it finds it or any of the file names. I frequently search my layout folder to see if I’ve already done certain photos. Since I name my layouts with the month and year I can search *dec17* to find all the layouts that had photos from Dec 2017. The * is a wildcard so it stands for anything and will bring up a file named christmas_dec17 or a file named snow_dec17. Maybe you could search for one of your files that way and hopefully find that the folder got moved into another one. I hope that's what happened, then it would still be on your hard drive.
 
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keepscrappin said:
Another idea is that maybe it accidentally got moved into another folder. Try doing a search for it on your hard drive to see if it finds it or any of the file names. I frequently search my layout folder to see if I’ve already done certain photos. Since I name my layouts with the month and year I can search *dec17* to find all the layouts that had photos from Dec 2017. The * is a wildcard so it stands for anything and will bring up a file named christmas_dec17 or a file named snow_dec17. Maybe you could search for one of your files that way and hopefully find that the folder got moved into another one. I hope that's what happened, then it would still be on your hard drive.
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I have searched literally everywhere using the folder name and various file names I know are in there... nothing.
 
Windows did a critical update about the week before Christmas. It has messed up the way my craft program saves and I can not 're open some files because it does not somehow recognize the extention. I am thinking some thing similar can have happened to you. Try to do a system restore to before the last update. It did not work for me ,it says I might have hard disk damage, but try, it can do no harm. Good luck...
 
Nemla said:
Windows did a critical update about the week before Christmas. It has messed up the way my craft program saves and I can not 're open some files because it does not somehow recognize the extention. I am thinking some thing similar can have happened to you. Try to do a system restore to before the last update. It did not work for me ,it says I might have hard disk damage, but try, it can do no harm. Good luck...
Click to expand...

I have tried that, but it did not work for me either. So far, I have had no luck getting my files back, even after using a recovery software. I have pretty much given up at this point... and ordered a new super large EHD that will arrive today.
 
I have had good luck using Recuva to restore files. https://www.piriform.com/recuva I just use the free one.
Once you delete a file it is not gone but the space on the hard drive is flagged by the os for being overwritten. If you have not used the computer much, it should find stuff.

Good Luck
 
Nemla said:
I can not 're open some files because it does not somehow recognize the extention
Click to expand...
I'm sure you've tried it, but just in case. Have you associated the files with the program again? Every time Adobe reader updates, I have to reassociate the pdf file format. I right click and choose 'open with' and pick the program. I also have to manually rename the bill from our rent company with PDF on the end to get it to open. Obviously, be careful with renaming and do at your own risk because it could break the file being read. But it works for me.
 
Is your HD a solid state drive, if so then your data is probably gone because newer SSD drives use the trim command when deleting and write new data at that point. If it's an older magnetic type drive then that data could still be there, but if you've used it much then it could have been overwritten by now too.
 
bestcee said:
I'm sure you've tried it, but just in case. Have you associated the files with the program again? Every time Adobe reader updates, I have to reassociate the pdf file format. I right click and choose 'open with' and pick the program. I also have to manually rename the bill from our rent company with PDF on the end to get it to open. Obviously, be careful with renaming and do at your own risk because it could break the file being read. But it works for me.
Click to expand...
Thank you, but Yes I have tried. No luck. I have also tried having the program closed,then double clicking on the file so it will go to the program and open , it worked for 1 but not for the others. Anything is worth a try though,it can't make it worse.
 
bestcee said:
I'm sure you've tried it, but just in case. Have you associated the files with the program again? Every time Adobe reader updates, I have to reassociate the pdf file format. I right click and choose 'open with' and pick the program. I also have to manually rename the bill from our rent company with PDF on the end to get it to open. Obviously, be careful with renaming and do at your own risk because it could break the file being read. But it works for me.
Click to expand...

My husband tried the adobe thing... we could actually see file names because they had been opened recently, so they still showed up in recent history. But if we tried to do anything at all with them, we got a message about them not being available and they disappeared.
 
keepscrappin said:
Is your HD a solid state drive, if so then your data is probably gone because newer SSD drives use the trim command when deleting and write new data at that point. If it's an older magnetic type drive then that data could still be there, but if you've used it much then it could have been overwritten by now too.
Click to expand...

It is newer... and I am pretty certain it is gone.

On a happy note (because my OLW is joy)... there were a few curriculum choices not working as well for us this year, so I am taking this as an opportunity to replace them and start something new.

I am most sad about some stories she had written over the years and typed up that are gone. I do still have rough drafts packed away in our school stuff.

Our state really requires very little to Homeschool so I didn’t lose mandatory attendance records or anything like that. I did lose my copy of her test scores but pretty sure I can get another copy of those.
 
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