[Love Calm Quiet]

Man, do I feel STUPID!
Trying to trash some obsolete space-hogs in my Documents folder, I was command-clicking to select items for trash; then command-DELETEing to send these few files to trash.
I was IN my doc folder while doing this.
I promptly went to Trash and... EMPTIED!

I don't know what key combo I had hit, but SOMEHOW I apparently had gotten the ENTIRE Documents folder into trash can. I don't know how I got it in there - it was still in Sidebar and I was still looking at its contents while the progress window for trash-deleting appear and showed me that over 1,000 files were in progress of being deleted. I quickly hit the STOP x.

Going to look in the trash was when I discovered that DOC folder was there - or what was left of it.

I did a forum search and looked at prosofteng's Data Recovery Software but they are WAY discouraging about recovering such... saying there may be way to recover some files if you know their types. Their ?types? Well, yes, every type of doc that I've worked on in the last six weeks (I know, I know) since my last full backup.

I there NO way to see list of these files through the OS?

If you have ANY help for me, I'll sure appreciate it!

Also: Can a FOLDER be "semi-locked" - so that things can be moved in and out of it, but that it can't accidentally be trashed like I just did with Documents?

--(signed) Very Bummed Out

PS: "Posting New Thread"s was unavailable when this first happened, so I backed up what I could from six weeks ago.
I'd still like to know what others think about the fact that it is possible to *trash* a folder (e.g., Documents) - while it's still in the finder sidebar - and get no warning...
And whether there's a way to protect a Folder from being trashed... without preventing individual items in it from being moved/trashed/etc.

[fisherKing]

my heart goes out to u...
everyone i know has at some point lost stuff;
accidentally deleted, a crashed drive, etc etc etc


i back up my powerbook once a month; but i back up my home folder every other week;
AND i've learned to copy anything urgent to another drive, so i always have a copy.


sometimes i think i'm being overly-cautious...but look what can happen.


back up often!

and good luck, whatever you work out.

!

[Love Calm Quiet]

Thanks for the understanding.

The *weird* thing still is how easy it is to assume that since a folder is in the sidebar "of course couldn't possibly be in the trash".

I'm wondering if it would have disappeared from sidebar if I'd let it be completely emptied from trash. But I'm too depressed to test it on some garbage folder.

Memo to self: monthly backup isn't enough for some stuff!

[macsfromnowon]

I don't know much about the reputation of "Data Rescue", but the following MacNN news may be right up your alley...

http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/11/...overy.bundles/

[CatOne]

Why should the sidebar have anything to do with it? It's just a shortcut... the shortcut would be updated to point to a folder in the trash if the folder is in the trash. If you empty the trash, then it will point to nothing, and give you a question mark.

You should restore from backup. If you still don't have a backup plan in this day and age... shame on you, and maybe you'll learn your lesson. ChronoSync and an external hard drive is pretty damned cheap.

[Chuckit]

The sidebar isn't a location on your disk — it's just a series of shortcuts. Things can appear there that don't even exist anymore.

As for data recovery, Data Rescue is rated well on MacUpdate and VersionTracker, so I'd say that sounds like a good choice. If you didn't know, though, until you run the recovery software, you shouldn't be using that computer. The more you write to the disk, the more likely it is you'll overwrite the deleted files.

[macsfromnowon]

True, sidebar doesn't have anything to do with it "logically" - but I think what LCQ is saying is that it might be nice to have some protection (or at least warning) when certain items (especially directories) are trashed. Maybe be make a file or directory "treasured" or something - kind of like "locked" but not so severe - so that there'd be a warning.

As another option, items that are in sidebar (thus likely to be important - like ~user) might by default give an extra warning before actions like trashing.

I appreciate it when my Mac watches out for how stupid I can be.

[Tesseract]

Originally Posted by macsfromnowon

Maybe be make a file or directory "treasured" or something

That's a great idea! Do you mind if I submit it to Apple as a feature request? (ADC bug/feature tracker system)

[CharlesS]

1. As Chuckit said, do not use the computer at all until you have recovered your files.

2. Get Data Rescue. It's the best tool for this sort of thing. Download it on another machine, not to your machine, as doing so could overwrite your files!

3. Put Data Rescue on a CD-R or some other sort of removable media, and run it from there on your machine. Do not copy it to the hard drive with the deleted files on it!

4. Don't use the short scan - use the long one. It takes forever, but you have a better chance of getting your files back.

[macsfromnowon]

Originally Posted by Tesseract

That's a great idea! Do you mind if I submit it to Apple as a feature request? (ADC bug/feature tracker system)

Sure! I'm sure you can phrase it better than I - to maximize the chance someone might pick up on it.

[Love Calm Quiet]

Thanks, CharlesS

[osxrules]

I agree with Data Rescue. Diskwarrior sucks in my personal experience. I use Data Rescue for data recovery and Techtool Pro 4 for hardware checking.

There are some pieces of software that install something that is running to check your deletes:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/26412
http://www.tredje.se/trashlaterx.html

So basically when you move stuff to trash and empty, it keeps it for a certain amount of time. I don't know what it is about the brain but it always registers a mistake after the damage is done. Like when you leave the house and remember the thing you couldn't remember that you were forgetting half a mile down the road. Well, after you hit empty trash and your brain clicks, one of those apps should let you get it back within what they call a grace period of time.

I also recommend using an external HD. I backup to mine daily. I use DVD RW for monthly backups and DVD-R for stuff that I'm keeping. I burn DVD-R more frequently than DVD RW so the DVD RW is getting redundant but I should keep them more up to date. You never know if two HDs can go at once.

[CatOne]

Originally Posted by Tesseract

That's a great idea! Do you mind if I submit it to Apple as a feature request? (ADC bug/feature tracker system)

Go ahead. But c'mon... just implement backup using ChronoSync on a daily basis for your "treasured" folders. It's very simple to do. If it's important to you, you need to back it up, period.

Because even if the OS protects your treasured folders, sooner or later you WILL have a hard drive fail on you. If you don't have a backup, you'll lose everything.

What's the German word... Schauenfreude? I get a bit of it when I hear all this crying about data loss without backups. Y'all are fools.