Community poll forum: How many times have you accidentally deleted a file?

(it's not available in Windows XP but is in others)

Dos is everywhere, it is not 'activly involved' in xp but it is there. And this time around you have 2 versions of dos, your good friend dos, and XP dos (cmd).

I had once formatted my C-disk from a Dos-window without realising that another partition with importand data was on the same drive. Besides I thouht I had a backup of this data, which of course I didn't check.

I am learning to use the computer and have lost files on a number of occasions in the last three weeks.The techy I use said he would install a programme to prevent a windows re-installation for the fourth time in three weeks.He installed acronis true image and set up a partition on the hard drive.He says now,what ever mistakes I make can be fixed up in under 15 minutes.It will reload windows,all programmes and settings exactly how it was before I destroyed the files.Is there somebody who can say whether this was the correct action to take in this case? Any advice would be appreciated.

I learned many years ago to be super careful when deleting files. I once deleted and lost for good a beautiful picture of my wife and our young grand daughter...a once in a lifetime digital picture. I deleted by mistake before burning it to a cd and only noticed this many weeks later.
Rest assure that this has not happened again. I now have two drives. I move the files to my spare hard drive while I work with the copies on my C Drive. Once done with my editing...etc....I burn the files onto a cd/dvd. I leave the files on the spare drive for a while and make sure the cd burn has performed correctly and that I am able to retrieve the files easily.

I used Norton System Works to recover my deleted files and they were just fine. It is somewhat complicated to use so read everything, but it does get the job done. Thank You Norton!

I have never had this problem because I with so much memory I hardly ever delete files. When I do I save a copy on a portable hard drive.

A few times, over maybe 15 years, I inadvertently deleted files. At worst, maybe a couple pages of typing.

The important thing to note is this: If you are working with files located on a server, and you do not have a local copy, you are more likely to lose the data irretrievably. This is of course due to the way server systems "recycle" storage space, plus the fact that an ordinary user normally will not have the admin powers to attempt file retrieval on a server used by others. Another argument for "local control", and why you should be sure that your application keeps a local copy as backup of your work.

Back in the days of good ol' DOS 3.1, I started to format a pile of floppys first thing in the morning. I started the machine. inserted the first floppy and typed in ''Format'' and hit ''Enter''. The message about all data being destroyed on the disk came up and I was asked to continue, Yes or No. I chose yes to start the format. It then asked if I was reall sure and I hit Y again. Then the mesage ''Formating drive C:'' was displayed on my screen!

No! No! Not drive C:! Then there I was doing the "Control C" thing to stop the operation. I dug out Nortons and started to recover the deleted files and replace the destroyed files one by one. Seven hours later, I had the machine restored and running as new. The first files destroyed were the operating system files. This would not have been so bad except I was the supervisor of a group at my plant that were in charge of all the process computers.

Yes, I was the guru on computers! Do not get complacent! Read all the messages that come on screen. That was many years back and I learned my lesson. Since then I have not been so careless with my files.

Here`s one! I was running my Norton one button checkup. I looked up and there in program integrity there was 10 problems. I take a look at the details and it turns out to be Windows files. I about have a heart attack and try to recover them under lost files recovery. Too no avail they`re not there. They are just gone. What happen to them from the last time I did a check-up I dont know. I`m not the only one who use`s this PC. So far I haven`t had any big problems, but I tried to recover them from my disc but it dosent give me that option. I tried to go to microsoft and look around to see if there was so way to repair it,but I cant find anything. I rebooted from the last known configuration that worked, but the files are still missing. If anyone has any ideas it would be helpful,but this happen 6 to 8 months ago. I have a Dell Dim 3000, Windows Home, D processor, 2 gigs RAM. Norton security.

Anyone who relies exclusively on digital data storage for ANY important documents, info, etc., has to have his brain refitted. Digital data storage is the most unreliable method of storing important data of any media currently in existence.

Digital storage is so reliant on the jumble-jungle of hardware and software and connectivity features that it cannot offer reliability, permanence, or retainability.

I did lose some data when I used to use Gmail (Google) which runs the most capriciously destructive mail service of any on the net. Google just destroys emails with whimsical abandon.

Jeunes

How many times have you accidentally deleted a file?
How many times have you accidentally deleted a file and found that you couldn't recover it?

Very different questions. I've probably accidently deleted files hundreds of times but 99% of the time I just go to EDIT/Undo Delete in explorer. Roughly 1% of the time I've had to open the Recycle Bin and drag it out.

I had a friend call me in a panic because she formatted the wrong drive during a fresh OS install. She hadn't started the actual install yet so we were able to get it all back plus some stuff she had intentionally deleted before the format with a program called RecoverLostData.

Although I've deleted more than my share of files by mistake, I was able to recover most of them. It was not from a utility that scans the hard drive, but from a backup program that I was able to recover in the past.

Back in the days when mainframes ruled the earth, it was understood that your data got backed up daily, and you did not have to do anything to make it happen. As companies made the switch to PCs, they forgot about the value of the infrastructure that used to be in place.

Needless to say, it's been years since I've had the security of knowing that I could go to yesterday's backup and get almost everything back.

In some ways, I am protected. For email, I use IMAP. So my email is not only safe on the server, it's also available and in sync on any PC I use, with any IMAP client, such as Outlook. For most files, I'm protected by RAID. It's not the RAID 5 that I had back in the mainframe days, and I get nowhere near the throughput that I did back then, but at least I am somewhat safe from crashes. I also have my own backup utility that copies things to a different hard drive, so even if I erase something, I can get it back.

The problem is that an electrical glitch could cause all my hard drives to fry at once. I once had a similar problem. I should have removed my working hard drive immediately until I knew what the problem was. Unfortunately, I did not. The disk manufacturer offered to replace my drive for free, but would do nothing to recover it. Since I'm in Silicon Valley, I had enough connections that I was able to find somebody at the HD company who could swap the circuits on my HD, and I was able to get my data back.

So I'm still vulnerable to accidental deletions, theft, hardware problems, natural disasters, etc. But things could be worse.

I used to have a problem when I edited a file, planned to save it under a new name, but accidentally overwrote the old file when I saved it. My solution was to change my editor so that when it saved, it kept 9 generations of backups, and dynamically renumbered them. But that was also in the mainframe days. I don't know if Windows programs have the right hooks to add user exits into their menu choices, but based on the lack of freely available public add ons, I'd assume it's not trivial.

Hi there people!
Back in the days I was running Win98 (not SE!!!) and had been for 4 years, I was building a pc for my dear old mum....(who is now as addicted in her 60s as am I!) and thought a GOOD way to reformat the 2nd hand drive I was using, would be to set it up as a slave on my own pc! So I did.

Downloaded a program from the net for reformatting (as the drive had been partitioned in NT in its original computer) and I couldn't access the partitions with windows 98 partitioner and my DOS is NOWHERE near that good (if that's even possible?!), SO, I ran the program and rebooted to find my entire hard drive (C!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh) GONE. EMPTY, system files (and everything else) not there.....(everybody's dead Dave....Red Dwarf....when it was still funny........sorry, I digress!)

UNKNOWINGLY, the program I'd downloaded would only reformat a MASTER drive without a registration key and I was using freeware, which was fully 'operational', except for this 1, small, yet CRUCIAL (in the OLDE worlde sense of the word) fact.

I lost 4 years worth of emails, stories, photos, movies taken from the webcam, kids drawings and worst of all (being a musician and being married to another!) 4 years of music...........BIG BIG BIG BIG ouch......

....and yes, I DID cry.....for a whole day..........

EVEN WORSE..........(honest guv!!)......read on if you can bear it......

before I had discovered that I could recover MOST if not ALL of this with some very 'super dooper' software, delivered to me just DAYS later, by a friend of somebody, somewhere, back in the early 90s 'high up' enough to have software able to recover ANYTHING from wiped drives (for legal reasons etc.!) I had already reformatted and reinstalled Windows TWICE!!!!

I'd had many probs with drivers the first time, so (the worst bit!)....I did it AGAIN, I reformatted and reinstalled windows AGAIN! When I came to run the software, the next day, as it arrived, I discovered to both my joy and THEN my horror, that it could, INDEED, find and restore things from the previous installation of windows, ALMOST no matter what.....but nothing from the version of Windows that I'd been running for 4 years, prior to that, which had my 'life' on it....ouch ouch ouch

So, HAVE I learnt my lesson.........um.......no, I have 180gigs of unbacked up photos and music......

Call me what you like......but short of burning it to disc, which I now am so paranoid is pointless as the rumours that it will degrade and be lost to me anyway eventually are rife.......what else can I do?!!! (rhetorical Q....I could buy 'back up hardware'.......which I guess is a whole new thread!!)

Thanks for reading......!

Lovelorn_angel....

My system has 2 hard drives, one for the OS and subsequent software, and one for data. I keep all my CDs and CD-ROMs backed up on this drive, as they tend to get scratched, lost, abducted by aliens, you get the point. I also keep all my digital artwork and files on this drive.

Ah, that fateful day. I was attemting to install Linux for the first time, with a friend on the phone walking me through the process. Upon completion of said installation, I found that there was no suitable driver for my video card for Linux. No big, just go back to XP.

After getting XP back up and running, I went to start installing proper drivers (also stored on the data drive) and to my horror, my own personal hell unfolded before my eyes as I opened the drive and there was NOTHING THERE!!!

I did not know that Linux automatically treated 2 hard drives as one, and my ''freind'' failed to mention that. Not only were some of the CDs I had ripped on that drive no longer in existance, but there was irreplaceable documents, images, pictures, etc. that I was convinced that I would never see again.

I started doing research into data recovery programs and found one on CNET called ''Recover My Files'' from a company called Get Data. I got the demo, and it found about 70% of what I was missing. I had to buy the program before it would actually recover it, but for the $70 some odd dollars I paid, it was worth it. Anything I couldnt just go out and buy again was recovered. Now I keep better backups!