[SOLVED] Reverse copy paste command

[legepe]

Hi all..
Really got my fingers crossed with this one... and not sure if im posting in the right location however it does concern win 7
I have copied a large amount of files (around 64gig) from one external hard drive to another external hard drive and want to know if there is a way to reverse the copy paste?
Any advice very welcome
Thanks
legepe

 

[vov4ik_il]

Ctrl+Z? If it is still in the buffer...

 

[Math Geek]

not sure what you mean by "reverse the copy and paste"

can you provide a bit more info about what happened, why it is not good, what you are hoping to accomplish and anything else that will help us figure out how we might be able to help you.

 

[legepe]

Ctrl+Z? If it is still in the buffer...

Nope.. doesnt work.. any other ways???

 

[ex_bubblehead]

The only way to "reverse" a copy operation is to actually copy the file back. There is no magic "undo" button here.

 

[USAFRet]

Copy/Paste means the original still lives on the source drive.
Simply delete what you copied to the target drive.

There is no Undo like there is with text.

 

[legepe]

OK... its like this... in my haste to get things done and needing space from a 1tb external hd I downloaded and run for the first time dupeGuru duplicate file finder and deleted around 60gb of data.. I gave it a quick check over before pressing the delete button and all looked ok.. i then proceeded to copy paste around 64gb of data to it from a different external hd. I then realised after this that the dupeGuru had deleted not only duplicates of files but in many cases the whole lot of them...! I ran Ontrack easy recovery to see what it would pick up but it doesnt look good.. So I thought my best option was to see if I could reverse the copy paste and then go from there...
Hope ive explained it well enough...
Any ideas of what i can do???

 

[USAFRet]

"in my haste "
Famous last words.

This is where backups come into the picture.

Try the following applications:
Recuva
Autopsy
PhotoRec

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Now that you've gone and overwritten a good portion of those deleted files by copying new data over it there's nothing you can do to recover that data. It's gone. This is why "BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP......" is preached here.

 

[Math Geek]

at this point you are probably out of luck. you deleted 60 gb and then wrote 60 gb back over top of the space you deleted from. that's why the recovery software turned up nothing. those work by looking at empty space to see if anything is still there. trouble is, you wrote over that space already. in this case, there is nothing you can do. deleting the new stuff you copied over won't change the fact that that physical space on the drive is written over since the other stuff was deleted.

 

[legepe]

OK ... I am running the PhotoRec at the moment.. its telling me its recovered upto now 1554 jpegs along with all the other things its recovering.. My concern now is that I only have 120gb free space on the drive its recovering to..? and its telling me estimated time to complete is 17hrs..
I think Ill go to bed and just hope that in the morning I can report back to you some good news.. thanks for your help on this...!

 

[USAFRet]

I wouldn't count on that "1554 jpegs" being actually recovered.

It does not count until the actual file resides on another drive and is actually working.
"1554" may be just file fragments.

 

[legepe]

Try the following applications:
Recuva
Autopsy
PhotoRec

It got to 79gb and was still showing 23hrs time to finish, 61 directories recovered, all having clear images of photos videos and other documents that had been deleted.. SIMPLY MAGIC...!!!!! Thank you so much for this USAFRet. No idea how it has done this, so far???? The only reason it stopped was because of my antivirus program and with a command from me I could have had it continue.. however there was only 40 something gb left on HD so I stopped it and invested in another 1tb HD which hopefully Ill receive tomorrow... then I will start it again and just leave it to do its MAGIC! Once done, I will have another week at least sorting out photos files and documents that I never thought I was to see again....! Unless you have another magic program that can do that for me too Thanks again.. it really means a lot to me...!

 

[USAFRet]

As said, it doesn't really count until the process is complete, and the actual files are sitting on a different storage location, and actually workable.

 

[legepe]

As said, it doesn't really count until the process is complete, and the actual files are sitting on a different storage location, and actually workable.

I will report back in two or three days definate result..

 

[Math Geek]

at first it sounded like you had the hdd full, deleted some stuff and then filled it back up.

obviously now it appears you had free space left even after adding the other files back to it. this is why you can seemingly recover some data. you may have gotten lucky here but do be careful in the future and come up with a decent back-up plan so you won't be going through this in the future.

 

[legepe]

ok the program PhotoRec has finished doing its stuff... not sure but maybe I shouldnt have selected to revover whole drive but regardless it seems to have worked and have 719gb in 478 folders recovered.
At first glance there are many files and folders that I needed to recover and testing one or two of them they seem to work fine however I now realise I have a massive task at sorting it all out... Can you recommend a good program which will help me in doing this?
Thanks again everyone for your input and help with this..!