Copy and Paste folder deleted

[piggybank]

Advice needed please. I lost 54 GB of files from a folder I copied and pasted yesterday from a WD 1TB Passport external drive to a WD 2 TB SATA 3 drive in a dock. This was to make space for a backup. First attempt only copied 14 GB, next attempt copied 16 GB. When I went to the folder of 54 GB in the sending drive it was empty. 14 GB of files found in the Passport recovery section, but all corrupted. It’s probable I will have this folder inside other backups I have. My concern is I need to back up a folder of 260 GB which is was partly backed up on previous dates. I cannot afford to have Windows tell me the folder is empty after a copy and paste. My question is. If I use Dropbox – which I can pay for, does the move of the folder involve the same process of copy and paste as Windows does. Any thoughts most appreciated. Windows 10 64 bit. Fully up to date and with anti-virus. i3 processor. Gigabyte board. Internet not in use at the time of copy.

[Loose rivets]

It would be worth looking at the drives with a utility. I'll let more up to date folk advise.

A pal lost three years of photographs and the Vista laptop became so overwhelmed not even Ccleaner would run. I booted with Ubuntu and slogged away for hours moving stuff in small quantities.

[piggybank]

Yes I will try that, other drives have been checked with the Western Digital Utility in February 20.Puran Utilties did a check on the C drive a few weeks back. Your comment on Vista rings a bell. I had an original version of Vista but gave up on it. I tried to give it away to the local Balinese who like free things, but no takers - not even for free.

[jimjim1]

Years ago I had great success with "CnW Recovery" software. I had corrupted the MFT by accidentally moving an active disk drive.

I got everything back as far as I could tell.

https://www.cnwrecovery.com/

The KEY step is to stop using the disk IMMEDIATELY. Then make a copy of it (image) and work on that.

The free version of CnW will tell you what it can find so you don't need to pay the modest cost when still blind.

If it is important someone will do if for you for maybe £200 as I recall,

[piggybank]

That sounds worth a try. The drive has been in continual use so I think whats lost is really gone. I make several backups so for sure its buried in a larger, more recent backup. Right now, each of the three external drives say the drive has a problem, scan and fix by Windows. Past experience has shown this is definite thing to avoid. Maybe Win10 next update will solve the problems I have.

[Jhieminga]

When moving large chunks of files, I would always copy and check, before removing the source. Even better, use some sort of synchronisation tool so that you’re sure to have a correct and complete copy. The golden rule is moving small chunks of files at a time, not whole Gbs at once.

[piggybank]

On hindsight you are right. I never removed the source, it was only a copy and paste. Whatever happened seems to be an error in my Windows 10. The only remnant of the sending folder was a name with no files in it. To do that folder in small pieces would take at least a day. In the past the larger file was of 250plus GB was done as one move, maybe that was my lucky day! The saving grace is I triple back up, albeit in folder and files that get larger over the days and weeks.

[Clay_T]

Loose rivets is on the right track. Linux will see the files*, no problem.

#1. Turn off and unplug the storage drive that contained your original files.
Nothing written to a drive is ever 'deleted'.
"Deleting" merely hides the file from the USER and allows the area on the disk where the file is stored to be overwritten.
As long as nothing gets written over the files, recovery is a cinch.

Mounting the drive READ ONLY prevents overwriting.
Mounting the drive on a Linux box will show the files.
There are Windows file recovery utilities out there. I haven't used one in 20 years but I imagine they haven't gotten any less bloated, clunky, or expensive since then.

(*)I have no experience with W10 so I don't know if Windows is doing funky things with the file system.
The drive may be encrypted. That would complicate going the Linux route to recovery.

[piggybank]

Thats useful info, I will look into especially the bit about write only. I have about 7 TB of backups and until I sort this loss of folders in move I am not keen to risk a backup till I see what is going wrong. Thanks

[Capn Bloggs]

Even better, use some sort of synchronisation tool so that you’re sure to have a correct and complete copy.
Freefilesync (https://freefilesync.org/download.php). Use it all the time for backing up data (not for cloning a system drive), sometimes it syncs hundreds of GB when setting up a bigger drive. Never missed a beat.