OK, you all know by now I am no tech-guru. In fact, I am pretty much as un-technologically advanced as they come. My grandpa had Facebook before I did. Case in point.
So here is the deal... a little over a week ago, I plugged in my drone's SD card to download the videos I got on its first voyage across the rice fields of Bali (amazing by the way!). Whenever the files were done downloading onto my computer, I got a notification telling me that my disc drive was running low! How in the heck can that be? I was not at all sure how that was possible because I only got this laptop 6 months ago and surely haven't burned through all of my memory already I would hope! Confuffled, I started looking for unneeded files to delete nonetheless, attributing it to my massive photo library.
I had just deleted all of my photos from my camera, backing them up twice on my computer. Then, I took an entire work day going through all of those photos and sorting them into nice little labeled files so I knew what photos were from where and when. It was super cute and made me feel like a brand new woman! (I love organization!) Knowing that I now had two copies, one organized and one huge copy of everything that used to be on my camera, I deleted the latter and then, CC Cleaner gave a little sweep and all of a sudden had tons of free space- yay! I did it!
Wrong. See, I was looking in my organized photos for some pictures I had just put there a few days ago and they were gone! I started panicking wondering how this could have happened and then it hit me! Could it be that the secondary copies were not separated from the main folder... had I just made some sort of ghost copies and therefore deleted their source?
Please tell me I didn't just delete the last year of my life!
I was so proud of myself for organizing all of my photos so I would actually know where they were and then for this to happen... it cannot be! I know one of you has the answer for me!
Before someone tells me to just Google it, cut me some slack. I already did and the first thing I did which was download software, which didn't work (even after hours of that whole ordeal.) I know there are some tech whizzes out there though that can help me solve this problem so come on and give me your ideas my friends!
Ideas?
I'll send you tons of virtual hugs if you can help me! Just as one example so you know what's at stake here, I had over 300 photos of Hobbiton, the movie set and now I only have maybe 15 :( The images I have captured of our beautiful mother earth need to be revived and shared!
I know if anyone can help me, it's my Steemit-fam!
I'm super hopeful and looking forward to your ideas!
Thanks Steemians!
XO,
๐
I have a very bad feeling about this ... but please please do as @st3llar says and stop using your pc until you get solid advice. The more you use it ... the more scans you run ... the more you move and overwrite any data that could be found.
.... in the mean time i'll tell you that all *.dll files are not virus cookies ... as one of my daughters once found out the very hard way.
We were able to rescue her ... but your situation ... oy. ...
Ever wonder if you're suppose to be restarting your life at a super deep level?
PS Here's a bajillion hugs!
I do not know what that means in the slightest but I won't delete anything or download anything else until we get to the bottom of this! It's really too bad that in getting ready to leave tomorrow, I was downloading and moving all kinds of files soooo we're just going to have to hope and pray or else, I just get even better at this whole getting used to losing things game I seem to be playing right now! ;)
I do think I am on some sort of material cleanse for some reason. It sure seems like it doesn't it? Maybe I was getting to clingy to my possessions! Jeepers! I just had to give Luna back yesterday too and am renting my home to someone starting tomorrow... this is definitely a new chapter! =/ Thanks for the hugs, I really appreciate them <3
no i mean turn it offf. Hibernate might slow the process but no promises as things can decide to wake up your pc and make it run.
The best would be to turn it completely off and monitor this post and steemit.chat and of course discord via your phone.
Every click of that hard drive is re-arranging stuff ... like think of all your pictures like a jigsaw puzzle scattered out on a table ... only it's worse ... with every whir (unless it's solid and doesn't whir) of your drive, every bit of data, every key stroke, every page load, every every everything you do on that pc has the ability to change a piece of your photos into something else. ...
your photos are not stored in one solid piece of data ... each photo is a million pieces (give or take a trillion) of data ... a million puzzle pieces. the recovery program needs to be able to find the sequence of these pieces.
so. seriously. turn the thing off.
PS Please!
PS I'm half expecting you to get turned away at the airport hahaha ... ok probably not but it did flit through my brain. I know!! With a friend like me, you don't need an enemy .... =p
So recap lol, I gave up on my photos... it was way too much for me to handle and I was running low on time so I just dedicated my heart to saying it was fine to let them go. I still have some phone photos so although I lost some of the professional ones, not everything is gone- gotta stay positive!
As for the EFFING airport lol, well, I didn't get turned away but I did get a $400 fine for forgetting some cherry tomatoes in my purse :(
As for the van... I cannot even get into that. It's brutal.
But, I am super excited to be going to see all the gorgeous nature soon :)
Oh girl! Fined? ! You couldn't just say, "oh I don't even want those!" ? ... I guess you're a seed smuggler! What a lovely world we live in.
Kind of figured as much on the photos. It's a good path.
Hugs to the van! I can imagine the frustration. The last few weeks we lived in our van, we never knew if it would start. Some electrical issue.
Fortunately for us we were already faced toward our next adventure and it did not involve the van. We were able to sell it for a few hundred.
I said I genuinely forgot about them, being half zombie from the large amount of travel and all but that wasn't flying. I'm going to see what I can do to try to minimize it because obviously that's a huge blow to the pocket and I would love to have that for other things in life haha ;)
Oh wow! Well I am excited to tell you that after many tests and about 2 weeks of waiting for the go ahead, I am taking off in my van, Sam today! So that means less Steemit probably, hopefully not I am excited to get out and see those beautiful NZ landscapes! I'll keep you updated! Sending you a huge hug!
OOOohhhh I am sooo excited for you !! Looking forward to all the updates !
Ouch, what a bummer! Do you happen to have a trash bin you can check? Most likely, your CC Cleaner app emptied that already, but if not you'll have a good chance of recovering those files. Look for that trash bin, and let me know if it's empty. We'll proceed to the next step from there. Quick note: I was just working with a fellow camera operator yesterday who told me he lost an entire wedding worth of footage from SD cardsโactually formatted and then shot new footage over the SD cards, and he was still able to recover that lost wedding with the help of a data recovery specialist. So there's still hope for your missing photos!
YAY @cabelindsay to save the day! <3
The trash bin was emptied by CC Cleaner who just made its way onto my sh*t list lol
I am so hopeful now that I hear your success story! Thank you so much for the uplift! <3 Now what do we do? =D
I think the next step is to look for a data recovery solution. I've had some success with two software applications: Jihosoft Photo Recovery and Wondershare Data Recovery. Let me know how this option works, and we'll go forward from there.
Hey @cabelindsay, I just wanted to pop back over here and thank you for your help. In the hustle and bustle of trying to take off for my trip I decided to just give up on it. I couldn't figure it out and it hurt too much. It's been a lesson on letting go, let's say ;)
Thank you again for your time and expertise<3
My pleasure! Yeah, giving up is a perfectly reasonable option too. A very wise person called that a "completion" when we call it quits like that. So congratulations on completing your journey there. ;)
Haha I absolutely love it! I have just completed looking for them is all :P Must go make new ones now ;)
Did you try digging around in the recycle bin or did CC cleaner empty it?
CC cleaner emptied it :(
well shit. I was hoping it would be something so easy you forgot to think about it. Unfortunately, that's the extent of my file recovery expertise. Good luck.
Hmmm me too! Gah, technology and I are always running into issues, I guess I should try to figure it out more before I keep using it haha ;) Thanks for the help!
There are recovery software that could recover the files. For best results, for now, avoid activities that would modify your hard drive like adding or deleting files,copying or transferring from one folder to another.
Recuva worked for me before.
Recuva you say? Thank you, I will give it a try! The one I tried didn't work! It ended up telling me that it couldn't find anything and wanted a bunch of money to 'try again' so I was doubtful it would be able to help me.
Funny you say that :'( I just downloaded 8 movies from my external onto here before I realized this had happened! Ugh! I hope they are just hiding!
Thank you for your help <3
I hate to say this, but the fact of downloading 8 movies after the fact... yeah... that will not make things easier for you
Most file systems when they delete things, generally only tend to delete the 'header' of the file, meaning that the data is still there but is okay to be written over.... File recovery scans the drive/disk and reads the data without the headers, sometimes you can get your files back. I wish I could give you the name of some good file recovery software, it's been a while since I've had to delve into that nightmare realm! There's a chance the data's still there...but... movies tend to use a lot of room as well so it's a crapshoot at this point!
Ugh :( Ya it seemed pretty not good so I gave up and it's OK, I love the help I got here from my super awesome Steemit fam though, you guys are the best ever <3
Oops! Sorry... I'll try looking for a solution I would be back..
I hope I get lucky
I guess I fall in the same category.
Haha thanks @kingjrn! I am hopeful we'll find something that can help and if not, I'll just have to take all new ones =D
for a girl who is technologically challenged you sure do have a lot of cash money in your wallet.
im somewhat technologically challenged and i have waaaaaaay less value to my account
Hey @nabes! I didn't say I lost my money! I said I lost my photos! =D
i know, im just stating if you were really technologically challenged i dont think you would even have a STEEM account :P
Haha I get by with a little help from my friends ;)
DAYUM!!!
Wish I could help, but I'm as tech challenged as you are
Dear Heart <3
Best wishes, hoping you get this fixered! :*
Beautiful eyes really attractive
i have almost the same problem, I had lost my photos twice because of my hard drive was broken. my friend said it took 8 million Rupiahs just to recover it here in Bali.
anyway, hope you could get the answer and help. and won't cost much