I'm looking for some positive stories of people who have deleted photographs or videos from their computer or hard drive. I'm so sick to my stomach and upset over this and know I will not be able to sleep tonight. I have a acquaintance who is a phenomenal IT guy that is going to try to help us recover these videos but not until tomorrow.
My husband accidentally deleted ALL our family videos. The most important ones being the birth of our two son's and those which included my Mother with my boys who passed away a little over a year ago. We did have them in two places but he was rearranging things and cleaning up old files with us having a new router and setting up a network. He had a huge brain fart and accidentally deleted them. He realized it soon after and started crying. It was on an external USB hard drive and nothing else was put on the hard drive. I've read online that the files are not actually deleted just undetected by your computer until new data is written over it.
Has anyone ever have this happen to them and successfully recovered their files? I just can't handle the thought of loosing all these memories. I need some positive stories to get me through until tomorrow. Please give me a little hope!
My MIL did something similar and used the computer for neary a week before she found some one to help hernrecover the pics. She was to get about half of the deleted files back. Good luck!
I have never done it but my advise is don't use the computer. When you delete it doesn't actually erase the data but opens the memory to save other data. As long as you have not saved anything over the date your IT friend should be able to recover it.
OMG, K.. I would be sick to my stomach! Have you tried contacting the Geek Squad from Best Buy? Ask them if they have any suggestions on who to call. I have also heard what you heard (that things are not really deleted permanently). I feel so bad for you AND your husband! Let us know what happens.
Yes, there is a chance you can retrieve the files. Do not do anything until you have someone who knows what they are doing take a look at your computer.
I know a company that specializes in things like this-they are the experts and deal with this stuff everyday.
They are fabulous!
Sue Martin
TMC Squared
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Good Luck!! I hope it all works out well for you : )
I recently took all my pictures and videos from four different computers and put them all on one hard drive and started working on backing everything up. This was pictures, videos, music, documents, and most importantly stuff from the kids that I had scanned to keep forever because I did not have the physical room to keep them. Then suddenly my computer stopped working. I took it to professionals and they told me everything was just gone. I was completely heartbroken and just could not get over it. I went into a depression so bad I got physically sick. A computer-savvy friend wanted a shot at it and I let him, and by some miracle he was able to save everything. I was so happy and thankful. I hope you get all your videos back because I know how it feels.
I think the odds are better since your husband realized his error right away. My fingers are crossed for you! Those do sound like treasures! I've lost files (fortunately most backed up) on a failing hard drive which is very different from your situation.
Backing up is oh so important but not always the most straightforward thing to do. There are a lot of services that allow you to backup photos and some videos but not all and the file type often needs to be changed.
We had something similar happen once. We did lose some files, but we recovered some files too. The key is to make sure that the IT person really knows what they are doing.
On a side note, try not to be too harsh with hubby. He is probably sick to his stomach over this too.
Good Luck!
I know this may seem silly, but did you look in the Recycle Bin for them? If they were too big to recycle, he would have gotten an extra prompt to say OK to that they would be permanently erased, otherwise everything goes to the Recycle Bin for this reason that people may need to get it back.
Other thing, yes, if you have not done anything to write over the files, they are still on your HD and a good IT person should be able to recover them. Just don't use your PC in the meantime.
It's ok.
You may want to check with your IT guy and see if this is something he's done before or just something he thinks he can do. But it should be possible and probably easier than most recovery jobs that often involve a frozen disk or data corruption. Good luck.
