*Sigh* Lesson learned

[Farva]

I know I have spoken some on data backup and having a good strategy. Well, I learned that you need to actually put it into practice and not just preach it. Yesterday, I was moving files (cut) from one of my computers to another, instead of using copy. I have no idea why I did it this way, but I did. Well, I was getting some errors while copying. I looked at what transfered so far and I remember what were in a lot of those folders, now I have a lot of data missing, pretty important data. Right now I'm running GetDataBack on the original machine. Hopefully I can recover the data that was moved (cut). Otherwise, I might be paying out my backside for data recovery.

I really need to get my tape backup project running here.

 

[GJSNeptune]

Yikes. Yeah, I hate that that about Windows. If only it could bypass transfer errors and move on to the next file(s). Would save many, many, many headaches.

"Problem moving file. Corrupt or not found. Transfer process will abort and data still needing transferred will now disappear."

 

[volve]

I had something similar happen on OSX a while ago.

I spent a whole weekend copying about 100 old Zip Disks (remember those things?) and organizing the files. After I was done I had a handy directory with categorized sub-directories with the years and years of backed-up files.

What I wanted to do was move it to a Windows box so I could burn it to a new, non-zip-disk-tastic DVD-R. Now, if you move a lot of files around in Windows you know that if a directory you're moving has the same name as a directory where you want to move it to, you get a warning saying "These directories have the same name. If you proceed then any files with the same names will be overwritten." This warning is perfectly ok, because you don't lose anything unless the file names match, right? Worked for me for years.

I went ahead and moved all the zip disk files to my Windows system over the network. Before I was about to burn I noticed 1 last zip disk I'd missed earlier, so I put it in the Mac's zip drive, copied the files to the directory I'd been using on OSX which was now empty, and then dragged that directory to my Windows share as before. This time I got the OSX equivalent of that "directory name already exists" warning I'm used to in Windows. I clicked ok. BIG MISTAKE. It turns out that even though the warnings look amazingly similar, THEY AREN'T. In Windows if the destination directory already exists, Windows will warn you but essentially merge what you're trying to copy/move over. In OSX, if you click OK on the warning, it DELETES THE DESTINATION FIRST.

Yeah.

That was an awesome waste of my weekend. I'll never see any of those files again.

<sigh>

(Just thought I'd share.)

 

[ChingChang]

Normally when there's an error while cutting, it will break the operation but you don't lose the files that haven't been "cut" yet.

Yikes. Yeah, I hate that that about Windows. If only it could bypass transfer errors and move on to the next file(s). Would save many, many, many headaches.

"Problem moving file. Corrupt or not found. Transfer process will abort and data still needing transferred will now disappear."

Vista doesn't have this problem
and Total Commander is a great program for copying/moving data. It works a lot better than Windows Explorer.

 

[Farva]

Normally when there's an error while cutting, it will break the operation but you don't lose the files that haven't been "cut" yet.


Vista doesn't have this problem
and Total Commander is a great program for copying/moving data. It works a lot better than Windows Explorer.

Ya, key word there is normally. I've never had this problem when "cutting" before, no errors, everything went just fine. A part of me knew I should have just done the "copying" instead, but I did it just as usual.

Total Commander is a 3rd party program correct?

 

[ChingChang]

yes and it is free :}
Total Commander

I use it all the time at work when backing up customer's data. Once you start copying/moving, you get a progress bar for the total process and one for the current file (in addition to file size transferred and transfer speed). If it gets to a file that can't be copied it will ask what you want to do, and you can choose to skip over all files that can't be copied.

I've had stability problems in XP when copying lots of data but this program does it a lot more smoothly.

I've used it in Vista for large transfers (+200GB) but Vista does a much better job than XP with this kind of stuff.

 

[Farva]

Thanks for the program I'll definitely use it from now on. I will be running GetDataBack again tomorrow to see if I can find anything, else..... /sigh

Looks like I'm going to get my tape backup solution finished sooner.

 

[Farva]

Woohoo, I was able to restore all my data with GetDataBack

*dances*

I am somewhat surprised it restored it from a "cut" command from another machine. Ah well, I have my data back and I <3 GDB

 

[Dan_D]

That is why I cut and paste using keyboard commands and never with the mouse. This way I never make that mistake.

 

[MixManSC]

Glad you were able to recover the data. I had that happen a long time ago using cut/paste to move a large amount of data. I've always used copy/past since so if it does screw up you can just start over.

 

[Farva]

That is why I cut and paste using keyboard commands and never with the mouse. This way I never make that mistake.

That is exactly what I did.

Glad you were able to recover the data. I had that happen a long time ago using cut/paste to move a large amount of data. I've always used copy/past since so if it does screw up you can just start over.

That is what I will be doing from now on. Copying the data and when I am done, verify the space is the same, and deleting old data.

 

[Mansize_tissue]

I've really regretted cutting and pasting files in the paste; copying them, although takes a little longer if you have to delete the original files, allows the full set of the original files if you get hit with an error.