I lost a folder

[Alys]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: intel

I stupidly tried to backup a folder from my desktop to my memory stick. The old backup was a fraction of the size and three weeks old, so there was a huge amount of work in there for my thesis. Suffice to say instead of replacing the old with the new, i replaced the new with the old! I cannot find my newer information anywhere. Is it hidden? Or has it gone forever. Very sad as I have lost about eighty pages of research....

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I stupidly tried to backup a folder from my desktop to my memory stick.
The old backup was a fraction of the size and three weeks old, so there
was a huge amount of work in there for my thesis. Suffice to say instead
of replacing the old with the new, i replaced the new with the old! I
cannot find my newer information anywhere. Is it hidden? Or has it gone
forever. Very sad as I have lost about eighty pages of research....

There are some utlities (like TechTool Pro) that can scan the disk
surface for deleted files.
The applications are not cheap and success is not guaranteed....
If anything, if you plan on using these applciations, you should stop
using this hard drive as each fle created on the drive is a chance that
old files will be over-written...


Corentin

 

[CyberTaz]

Exactly *how* did you attempt to do the backup?

If you simply dragged, the default is to Copy and if the content on the
stick had the same name you would have been prompted to replace it. "Cancel"
would have resulted in 'no harm - no foul' & if you confirmed the *new*
stuff being copied would have overwritten the older version. In fact, that
should be what happened even if you Command+Dragged or Cut & Pasted.

I'm not trying to badger you, but it's hard to suggest a remedy when you
don't know what the illness really is - and may not (hopefully) be real

 

[Diane Ross]

I stupidly tried to backup a folder from my desktop to my memory stick. The
old backup was a fraction of the size and three weeks old, so there was a huge
amount of work in there for my thesis. Suffice to say instead of replacing the
old with the new, i replaced the new with the old! I cannot find my newer
information anywhere. Is it hidden? Or has it gone forever. Very sad as I have
lost about eighty pages of research....

One more suggestion. Look in the trash.

I'm with Bob, dragging to your memory stick should have copied not deleted
the files.

 

[Alys]

Hi Guys

Thanks so much for your advice.

I dragged it and said 'replace' which did copy but somehow - and that i cannot work out how - the old folder (with one item)from the memory stick replaced the newer updated folder (with six items) on the desktop.

 

[Alys]

to give the details, although i think i have no chance of recovering it:
I had done a month's work in a foldercalled thesis on my desktop. it had six documents in them - two were doc.x - others older. i also had a backup for over a month ago on my memory stick, which was a folder called thesis with one item - a doc. i tried to move the icon from the desktop onto my memory stick and it told me it was too full. i then deleted some of the things on the memory stick and it said did i want to copy or replace. i said replace and the dekstop 'thesis' was changed to the folder with one item. was frustrated and deleted what was on the memory stick but kept the old folder called thesis on my desktop. i tried the memory stick on an ibm - nothing hidden. i checked the trash on the mac - not there. i spotlighted the name of the folder and words in titles of the docs, not there.... thanks

 

[Alys]

I just want to thank you again for taking the time to try and help me.
I am repeating this, cos I forgot to ask to be emailed when a reply was posted, so please reply to this one too:
to give the details, although i think i have no chance of recovering it:
I had done a month's work in a foldercalled thesis on my desktop. it had six documents in them - two were doc.x - others older. i also had a backup for over a month ago on my memory stick, which was a folder called thesis with one item - a doc. i tried to move the icon from the desktop onto my memory stick and it told me it was too full. i then deleted some of the things on the memory stick and it said did i want to copy or replace. i said replace and the dekstop 'thesis' was changed to the folder with one item. was frustrated and deleted what was on the memory stick but kept the old folder called thesis on my desktop. tried the memory stick on an ibm - nothing hidden. checked the trash on the mac - not there. spotlighted the name of the folder and words in titles of the docs, not there.... thanks

 

[Diane Ross]

to give the details, although i think i have no chance of recovering it:
I had done a month's work in a foldercalled thesis on my desktop. it had six
documents in them - two were doc.x - others older. i also had a backup for
over a month ago on my memory stick, which was a folder called thesis with one
item - a doc. i tried to move the icon from the desktop onto my memory stick
and it told me it was too full. i then deleted some of the things on the
memory stick and it said did i want to copy or replace. i said replace and the
dekstop 'thesis' was changed to the folder with one item. was frustrated and
deleted what was on the memory stick but kept the old folder called thesis on
my desktop. tried the memory stick on an ibm - nothing hidden. checked the
trash on the mac - not there. spotlighted the name of the folder and words in
titles of the docs, not there.... thanks

You are screwed unless the memory file can be recovered! Try Data Rescue. It
has a free demo. <http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php>

If you have written to the memory stick then most likely you will not
recover much

When you have files that are that important and this is the only backup you
have, then shame on you. Duplicating those 6 files would have been
miniscule. Sorry for being tough, but all of this comes from bad practices.
Learn from them so this hard lesson will not have to be repeated.

I see you are on Tiger so do not have Time Machine. I have posted directions
for making a Time-Machine-like backup that can be used on Tiger. It can
backup your data daily or whatever time period you choose. It's automatic so
you never have to worry about this again. Just substitute your Thesis folder
for the Microsoft User Data folder in the tutorial.

Entourage and Time-Machine-like backup

<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/entourage_and_time_machine.html>

Good luck!

 

[Alys]

You are quite right to be tough, I deserve it.

A great lesson.

Thanks for all the tips.

will try them but the energy spent on trying to recover something most probably gone, seems to be a waste at this moment.

Will most certainly take your advice. Am installing Leopard and will get an external hard drive for backing up through the time machine.

Thank you all so much for your input. I hope other people can benefit from this too.

Bless you

 

[Diane Ross]

Will most certainly take your advice. Am installing Leopard and will get an
external hard drive for backing up through the time machine.

Be sure to get one that is large enough. Right now I can't remember the
exact specifications, but it has to be at least twice the size of your
current install. The one I use is 500 GB.

You can exclude some items from Time Machine. Entourage is one that should
be excluded.

Thank you all so much for your input. I hope other people can benefit from
this too.

Sadly, this topic comes up all too often, but as you say hopefully this
reminder will save someone from happening to them too.

Since you are making some changes, I would like to recommend SuperDuper!,
backup software. This would be in addition to Time Machine. I think of Time
Machine as recovery from an Oooops!, SuperDuper! is recovery from OMG!

We've discussed using SuperDuper!(backup software), Not only does it do an
excellent backup (clone) of your HD but it has a feature that protects you
from system updates that so bad.

One of the options in SuperDuper! is to create what the author calls a
"Sandbox". It's used to revert to pre-update state of your OS. Here's a
description of how this option works:

A Sandbox is a bootable copy of your system, stored on another hard drive or
partition, that shares your personal documents and data with the original.
With SuperDuper!, you actually use the Sandbox as your startup volume. You
can safely install any system updates, drivers or programs in the Sandbox,
without worrying about what might happen to your system. If anything goes
wrong, you can simply start up from the original system. SuperDuper! has
preserved it in its original, pre-disaster state but all your new and
changed personal documents are totally up to date. Within minutes, you're up
and running again without having to go through a difficult and
time-consuming restore process.

The free version of SuperDuper just does backups. In order to get it to
schedule, you need the paid version. It also can be used on the Time Machine
volume. You'll need to check out the details on that as I've never used that
feature.

SuperDuper! Is $27.95. I¹m not affiliated with the product. Just a satisfied
user. <http://www.shirt-pocket.com/>