Hit Unknown Keyboard Shortcut, Files and Folder Gone...

[SparklePony]

I was pulling pictures off my phone (via USB) and had all the ones I needed transferred to a folder on my desktop. Inside that folder, I wanted to rotate one of them, but had them all highlighted. After rotating all of them on accident, I hit what I thought was Ctrl+Z and, in addition to the ones I had highlighted, ALL of the pictures in that folder disappeared, as well as the folder itself.

In Windows Explorer, looking at my Desktop files, I hit what I thought was Ctrl+Z again, now another folder vanished. If I search for them using Windows Explorer, I can see the folders, though they appear empty, seem to have duplicated. When I hover over the folder is shows the location at C:\Users\Andy\Desktop\Foldername, but when I try to open the locations it says the shortcut doesn't exist.

WTF happened to my pictures!? Halp!!

 

[notlim981]

I guess you must have cut the files from your phone instead of copying them, and when you pressed CTRL+Z they were swept away. You should install a program to try to recover them, but this is not guaranteed. Try not to copy/move anymore files until you try that, and don't reset/turn off/put the computer to sleep to preserve the memory.

Here's a guide to help you try to recover the files:
http://www.howtogeek.com/169344/how-to-recover-a-deleted-file-the-ultimate-guide/

And here's a free recovery software:
http://www.piriform.com/recuva

Let us know how it went. Good luck.

 

[SparklePony]

Let us know how it went. Good luck.

I always cut from my phone to my PC so that I save the step of then having to delete them from my phone. After I rotated them on accident, it was when I tried to Ctrl+Z to undo the rotate. I've never seen a folder I've been working in disappear like that while I'm in it... I thought maybe I deleted it, so I tried to navigate up one folder and tried to Ctrl+Z there, thinking I deleted it, but another folder disappeared as I tried... *Poof*...

Tried the recovery software to no avail. If they aren't showing up via that software, does that mean they aren't deleted? There are Empty Folder icons where the filled folders should be, only there are two empty folder icons for each.

 

[notlim981]

I'm afraid you accidentally deleted your files then, unless some of the colleagues here have something else in mind that I don't. Try to always copy and paste instead of cutting them, so when stuff like that happens you'll still have the source files.

 

[SparklePony]

I'm afraid you accidentally deleted your files then, unless some of the colleagues here have something else in mind that I don't. Try to always copy and paste instead of cutting them, so when stuff like that happens you'll still have the source files.

Any idea what shortcut around the bottom left of the keyboard I might've hit? Like I said I thought I was hitting Ctrl+Z when the folder disappeared... While I was in it... It's just weird.

 

[notlim981]

I don't know, maybe you were going too fast, but SHIFT+DEL deletes files without warning.

 

[SparklePony]

I don't know, maybe you were going too fast, but SHIFT+DEL deletes files without warning.

I do love to use me some Shift+Del (I'm lazy and like to avoid extra steps if you couldn't tell...), but I wasn't anywhere near the Del key. Like I said it's just weird. Maybe someone else knows some keyboard voodoo, but the good news is they were just pictures of cards I'm selling... Lots of pictures

 

[mjslakeridge]

You probably already checked, but are any of the deleted pictures in your recycle bin?

 

[SparklePony]

You probably already checked, but are any of the deleted pictures in your recycle bin?

No, it's empty. I don't even keep it on my Desktop because I usually just Shift+Del, but that wasn't the case here, since my right hand was on the mouse and my left was hitting Ctrl+Z (or so I thought) to undo the accidental rotate.

 

[mjslakeridge]

When you "delete" a file from your computer, it is not actually gone. The system just knows it is OK to overwrite the space on the storage device (HDD, SSD) when it needs the space to write a new file. That being said, if the recuva program didn't find the files, who knows what happened. Luckily in this case you can re-take the pictures and no real harm done, other than your time.