Windows 7: How to recover Cancelled Moving Files From an external drive

Hello, i am facing a very disturbing problem right now... On my external hard disk, i tried moving a folder that contained all my important files into the hidden folder named $RECYCLE.BIN.... this was successful, but in my quest to secure the folder more, i tried moving it into one of the folders named "S-1-5-21-3653930289-2530686896-918681669-1001", this was beginning to take a long time so i pressed Cancel. Only to find the folder missing, And i cant open the above named folder for access.... While checking the hard disk property and diskspace, it shows that the folder is still occupying its space.. I tried undoing the move but i still cant find it... any help??

Boy oh Boy that is the first time I have ever head of anybody trying to do that. What in the world made you try that? The only thing I can think of is doing a search for $RECYCLE.BIN using Windows Explores and see if there is a folder with your things in it.

I have really big difficulties to believe this is true, must be a troll. Nobody, absolutely nobody can be so stupid inconsiderate and thoughtless.

If we have the mother of all Darwin Award winners here, you have exactly four options (the fourth one is not a real option, just a fact):

• Restore an earlier system image
• Restore the folder from an earlier file backup that contains the folder in question
• Restore an earlier version of the parent folder which contained the folder you moved to trash
• Forget those files, they are gone

Kari

Download and run Recuva and see what it fines. Get the Free version.

Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery - Free Download

Jim

Is there not the option of using a forensic filesystem utility to restore deleted files? I don't understand why they would be gone though; I was pretty sure the way Windows handled a move operation was to write the destination before deleting the source. Although I also don't understand how copying your files to these folders would secure them.

Darwin Award
Now why didn't I think of that?
Thanks Kari.