Files disappeared

[ivan]

First of all, I'd advise against anyone trying to repeat this so paraphrasing the message of wrestling shows: don't try this at home

Here we go, this is what happened:

1. I came home last night and turned on my PC so it wakes up from hibernating.

2. While it was waking up, I plugged in my external HDD and a memory stick because I had to transfer some files from one to the other.

3. Once the PC booted up, I went to XY (it was already running since I hibernated with it minimised), navigated to my external HDD, selected the files to copy over to memory stick and attempted to drag and drop them there.

4. An error message came up, telling me that device was not found and asked me if I wanted to retry, abort or ignore. Being the persevering kind of chap, I said to retry and clicked to refresh the tree and the viewing pane.

5. Refresh has happened, but to my horror the files didn't get transferred over to the stick and they weren't present on the external HDD any more!

I searched for them everywhere, even tried some file recovery software but no luck

I may be incorrect to point my finger at XYplorer and accuse it of being the culprit of it somehow but considering I was using it throughout the whole thing I'm not sure who else could be a scapegoat...

[admin]

Since XY just sends the copy job to the shell and waits until the shell is done, it can't take any blame here.

However, I'm very surprised that this should have happened! I never ever lost a file through a move process. But I'll try your procedure (against your good advice ).

[admin]

2. While it was waking up, I plugged in my external HDD and a memory stick because I had to transfer some files from one to the other.

Plug+Play while the machine is booting? This part of your description is something I would never do. Just FYI.

[admin]

Okay, tried it: No problem at all. (Of course I did not plug in the external devices while booting up.)

[ivan]

I never ever lost a file through a move process

Actually, since it's from one drive to another then wouldn't it be copy and not move? At least that's the impression I have and that's what always happens when I drag and drop stuff from my external to main HDD

[admin]

I never ever lost a file through a move process

Actually, since it's from one drive to another then wouldn't it be copy and not move? At least that's the impression I have and that's what always happens when I drag and drop stuff from my external to main HDD

I wasn't sure if you did a copy or a move (when doing drag'n'drop you can force a copy by holding CTRL and a move by holding SHIFT). If it was a copy then of course losing the source files is even more unlikely if you ask me.

Of course, losing files is about the last thing that should happen to a user (apart from an electric shock, maybe) -- and every software maker will take care that this will not happen on his fault (it would ruin his business immediately). The problem was apparently that your source or target drive was not ready on a very low level -- unexpected hardware issues can lead to the wildest problems.

[ivan]

The problem was apparently that your source or target drive was not ready on a very low level -- unexpected hardware issues can lead to the wildest problems.

But how was I able to browse the source drive and see the tree directory of the destination drive and either of those not be ready? And even if the destination wasn't ready then why would the files be completely and unrecoverably removed from the source drive especially if it's a copy procedure that I was trying to carry out...

[admin]

The problem was apparently that your source or target drive was not ready on a very low level -- unexpected hardware issues can lead to the wildest problems.

But how was I able to browse the source drive and see the tree directory of the destination drive and either of those not be ready? And even if the destination wasn't ready then why would the files be completely and unrecoverably removed from the source drive especially if it's a copy procedure that I was trying to carry out...

I don't know. It surely sounds like not being possible, but it happened. If XY was minimized then the tree and list data were are in its memory after hibernation. But in the moment you select an invalid drive/path, you will get the not found message. If you trigger a copy operation towards a non-existing target the shell will let you know.

[ivan]

If you trigger a copy operation towards a non-existing target the shell will let you know.

And it did, with the whole "retry, abort, ignore" box. I clicked on Retry, refreshed the tree and files were gone, nowhere to be seen. I now realise that it's not XY's fault but some safety net, if possible in such situations, would be greatly appreciated

[admin]

If you trigger a copy operation towards a non-existing target the shell will let you know.

And it did, with the whole "retry, abort, ignore" box. I clicked on Retry, refreshed the tree and files were gone, nowhere to be seen. I now realise that it's not XY's fault but some safety net, if possible in such situations, would be greatly appreciated

So what was exactly the problem? The target did not exist? Sure I could test that before shelling the job.

[ivan]

So what was exactly the problem? The target did not exist? Sure I could test that before shelling the job.

I think that's correct, even though the target did exist since I could see the tree structure of it, but it was definitely not a problem with the source. Maybe also, once the copy is done, check the source and destination that files that were copied are still present in both locations, not sure if that would be going over the top though...

[j_c_hallgren]

I searched for them everywhere, even tried some file recovery software but no luck

And this was your only copy of these files and you were backing them up? Because any file that exists on less then two separate devices isn't backed up in my definition.
Not saying that you shouldn't be but I try to keep at least three copies of most of my files, including one off-site.

[ivan]

And this was your only copy of these files and you were backing them up? Because any file that exists on less then two separate devices isn't backed up in my definition.
Not saying that you shouldn't be but I try to keep at least three copies of most of my files, including one off-site.

Take it easy I have those files on another PC so it's not the end of the world. I'm just trying to get to the bottom of why this happened and if there's anything XY (even though it wasn't its fault) can do in the future to safeguard users against this in the future.