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kelesh · Nov 30, 2005, 03:05 AM

My ktten sat on my powerbook and walked on the keyboard as they often do. Afterwards, my documents folder was gone. Recycle bin was empty. Searching for "documents" or a file i know was in there doesn't bring it up.

Any thoughts? I'd really like to get my documents folder back. This is on 10.3.9.

tooki · Nov 30, 2005, 03:11 AM

It's most unlikely that your kitty managed to press command-delete AND then command-shift-option-delete, in that order.

tooki

P.S. The Trash. It's called the Trash! "Recycle Bin" is Microsoft's way of ripping off the Trash without giving it the same exact name!

kelesh · Nov 30, 2005, 03:21 AM

they also pressed things often to close adium. they do have 4 feet and a body. how can I check when "The Trash" was last cleared?

P.S. "Recycle Bin" is a much more apt name, since the space is being recycled :-P MS still sucks :-)

check out my Window XP desktop

CharlesS · Nov 30, 2005, 03:34 AM

You could try to undelete the files with Data Rescue, but if you've already used the computer much since the deletion, the files may be overwritten, and you may be out of luck.

kelesh · Nov 30, 2005, 03:35 AM

are there any other possibilities besides deletion? what else could have happened here?

Chuckit · Nov 30, 2005, 05:20 AM

Originally Posted by kelesh

are there any other possibilities besides deletion? what else could have happened here?

Assuming it's not deleted, it could have been archived or moved to a volume that your search window isn't set to look on.

Also, to sort of reiterate, make sure that you are searching correctly. I know so many times people will accidentally have an extra criterion set without even noticing it that will screw up their results.

Big Mac · Nov 30, 2005, 07:08 AM

Do you happen to know how much free drive space you had left recently? If you have a lot more free space now than you did before, then your files have been deleted. I honestly don't think that scenario is that likely, however. Keep searching. Search for the names of various documents you know you had.

Oh, and concerning Trash vs. Recycle Bin, while the name Recycle Bin sounds more appealing, you aren't recycling your data in new and interesting ways - you are throwing it out to make more space for new data.

kelesh · Nov 30, 2005, 09:33 AM

i searched my hard drive using the upper right search box in finder in 10.3.9 for "list.txt" withouth the quotes and for "documents" to no avail.

~10 gigs of space free. archived? where do i look to find an archived or unsearchable volume?? my documents folder was very small, so i doubt i'd noticed a drive space change if it was deleted. i don't think it is likely either :-)

whatever the data is made of is being reused to make new data. the stuff underneath is being recycled to make new data. its a recycle bin. this also promotes recycling which is another good thing - apple owners should be more open minded and embrace recycling more anyway, but I guess anti-Microsoft hate 0wnz all :-P

kelesh · Nov 30, 2005, 09:40 AM

Trash is catchier and more easy to relate to. apple is good at that stuff. but i like Recycle Bin more - its more apt to describe the situation, promotes recycling, and just has more positive energy :-)

kelesh · Nov 30, 2005, 09:42 AM

nothing is being thrown out. the computer is a closed system :-P

CharlesS · Nov 30, 2005, 01:50 PM

Hmm, maybe the Finder's search command is messing up for some reason. You could try this command in the Terminal to look for your file:

find / -name list.txt

kelesh · Nov 30, 2005, 01:57 PM

#.screenrc#
#.screenrc2#
#.tcshrc#
$#"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""U44444 44444444444444444444444444444444444444
%backup%~
,m';. #.naimrc#
Applications
Desktop
Library
Movies
Music
Pictures
Public
Sites

i suspect it was renamed to $#"""""""""""""... etc as this is very easy to do by just stepping on the keyboard. how can I rename this? I can't seem to tab-complete to it in terminal and can't see it in finder

kelesh · Nov 30, 2005, 01:59 PM

powerbook:/ root# find / -name list.txt
powerbook:/ root#

didn't find it

tooki · Nov 30, 2005, 02:01 PM

It should be visible in the Finder. I can't imagine why it wouldn't be.

tooki

kelesh · Nov 30, 2005, 02:01 PM

actually that did show in finder, and was just a file unopenable apparently, not a folder

CharlesS · Nov 30, 2005, 02:40 PM

Actually, I didn't realize that you might have been doing a case-insensitive search (as your second search for "documents" suggests).

Try this one instead:

find / -iname list.txt

kelesh · Nov 30, 2005, 04:04 PM

list.txt was definitely lowercase. i tried it as root from the base directory and found nothing :-(

any out-of-the-box ideas about what could have happened here?

CharlesS · Nov 30, 2005, 07:34 PM

You could try Data Rescue (but download it to another Mac, not your hard drive). However, if the files were deleted, it may be too late now. Still, might be worth a try, and Data Rescue lets you recover one file before you have to register the app (so you can see whether or not it's going to work).

msuper69 · Nov 30, 2005, 11:45 PM

Originally Posted by kelesh

they also pressed things often to close adium. they do have 4 feet and a body. how can I check when "The Trash" was last cleared?

P.S. "Recycle Bin" is a much more apt name, since the space is being recycled :-P MS still sucks :-)

check out my Window XP desktop

I don't know about "Recycle Bin". I have trash cans in my home and car and I can pull things out of them whenever I need to. Until I empty the trash and then of course it's gone. I could go to the city dump and look for it, but that's too much work (Kind of like having to buy Data Rescue for when you want to find something after the Trash has been emptied.)

So, "Trash" is most appropriate. The similarities between real life and the Mac's virtual Trash is frightening.

kelesh · Dec 1, 2005, 09:46 PM

Originally Posted by msuper69

I don't know about "Recycle Bin". I have trash cans in my home and car and I can pull things out of them whenever I need to. Until I empty the trash and then of course it's gone. I could go to the city dump and look for it, but that's too much work (Kind of like having to buy Data Rescue for when you want to find something after the Trash has been emptied.)

So, "Trash" is most appropriate. The similarities between real life and the Mac's virtual Trash is frightening.

Wow, i thought mac users were supposed to be more open-minded

You didn't discuss "recycle bin" at all, and then just gave a horribly weak argument for why "trash" is a good name. When you empty your recycle bins at home the stuff is also gone. Its only recoverable until it is recycled into something else(just like the data that gets erased and then overwritten). The similarities between mac users and windows users is frightening

(yeah, i'm a punk, but i'm right)

kelesh · 10:56 PM

duplicate post - damn lagging firefox got me again ;-)