copies of copies and lost photos

[miskairal]

Please bare with me here as I don't really know how to explain this
concisely. I have spent the last hour searching the net for an answer
but I dont' know good search words to use for this particular problem so
even if you can help me in that regard it would be appreciated.

A friend (I'll call her M) was downloading photos from her camera to
another friend's (I'll call her B) computer when she realized there were
still some old photos on her camera that B wouldn't want. M decided to
delete all these unwanted pics by dragging them to a new folder and then
she was going to delete the new folder (not sure why it was being done
this way). At some point in the process of dragging the photos there
suddenly appeared a copy of each of those photos and a copy and a copy
until there were approx 6 copies of each photo in the new folder. A few
of those copies appear to be corrupt or something as they will not open.

I think it was at this point that M, wondering what was going on, went
to check other folders to see everything was ok and this was when she
noticed that other photo folders of B's had gone, vanished, from the My
Documents | My Pictures folder. At this point M had not deleted a thing.
M did a search for files and folders and the first time got results that
only listed each photo that was missing with an icon that I think must
have been the internet shortcut icon. She was unable to open or find
these. I am unable to recreate this search result.

I can't find these missing files anywhere on the pc. I've been in the
recycle bin, I've changed folder options so hidden folders can be seen,
I've done countless searches with NO results. I manually searched just
about every where on the drive as there is not a lot on there and it
didn't take too long. I don't think I went through every Windows folder
though?? I then installed a free programme called Handy recovery which
showed some deleted files I was able to get back but they were all the
copy of copy photos which ahd been deleted after M gave up trying to
find the lost stuff.

I believe these photos to be gone forever but on the offchance someone
has seen a similar thing occur I thought I'd post here. We don't think
that B has these photos backed up but she is away right now and M is
babysitting her farm. Some of the missing photos were in a folder
labelled Grandkids so we think B might not be too happy

Thanks for ANY help or directions
miskairal

 

[Sharon F]

Please bare with me here as I don't really know how to explain this
concisely. I have spent the last hour searching the net for an answer
but I dont' know good search words to use for this particular problem so
even if you can help me in that regard it would be appreciated.

A friend (I'll call her M) was downloading photos from her camera to
another friend's (I'll call her B) computer when she realized there were
still some old photos on her camera that B wouldn't want. M decided to
delete all these unwanted pics by dragging them to a new folder and then
she was going to delete the new folder (not sure why it was being done
this way). At some point in the process of dragging the photos there
suddenly appeared a copy of each of those photos and a copy and a copy
until there were approx 6 copies of each photo in the new folder. A few
of those copies appear to be corrupt or something as they will not open.

I think it was at this point that M, wondering what was going on, went
to check other folders to see everything was ok and this was when she
noticed that other photo folders of B's had gone, vanished, from the My
Documents | My Pictures folder. At this point M had not deleted a thing.
M did a search for files and folders and the first time got results that
only listed each photo that was missing with an icon that I think must
have been the internet shortcut icon. She was unable to open or find
these. I am unable to recreate this search result.

I can't find these missing files anywhere on the pc. I've been in the
recycle bin, I've changed folder options so hidden folders can be seen,
I've done countless searches with NO results. I manually searched just
about every where on the drive as there is not a lot on there and it
didn't take too long. I don't think I went through every Windows folder
though?? I then installed a free programme called Handy recovery which
showed some deleted files I was able to get back but they were all the
copy of copy photos which ahd been deleted after M gave up trying to
find the lost stuff.

I believe these photos to be gone forever but on the offchance someone
has seen a similar thing occur I thought I'd post here. We don't think
that B has these photos backed up but she is away right now and M is
babysitting her farm. Some of the missing photos were in a folder
labelled Grandkids so we think B might not be too happy

Thanks for ANY help or directions
miskairal

The unwanted copies were caused by selecting and dragging incorrectly:
- If there is any change in the pressure on the mouse button before the
drag and drop completes, copies are created in the original folder.
- If the mouse is moved at the wrong time or extra clicks occur at the
wrong moment, that can create unwanted copies as well.
-
Solution: Be more precise in selecting, dragging and dropping. If problem
continues, try dragging with the right mouse button instead. A "drop" when
using the right mouse button will bring up a "move, copy, create shortcut,
cancel" menu and thus avoid unwanted copies.

No idea about where the missing files went. They would be difficult to
track if this was a first person story but this is a third person recount
which makes details of all actions fuzzier. Might try one of the undelete
programs. If the files were accidentally deleted, software of this type
might be able to recover some (possibly all) of them.

A google search would turn up many options. There are a few recommendations
on this page as well:
http://www.aumha.org/freeware/freeware.htm

 

[miskairal]

Thanks Sharon.
Yesterday the computer was taken to a technician who used an undelete
programme but it appears the files are gone forever. Mabye now B will
make the effort to learn how to backup. Seems it always takes something
like this before people will bother.

 

[Sharon F]

Thanks Sharon.
Yesterday the computer was taken to a technician who used an undelete
programme but it appears the files are gone forever. Mabye now B will
make the effort to learn how to backup. Seems it always takes something
like this before people will bother.

You're welcome! It's a painful lesson to learn.