Hi Alan,
Finally, someone doesnt think I am insane!! I am also an IT Pro, and I actually had to have it happen to me 4 or 5 times before I could convince myself it was a Windows issue and not me pressing Shift+Del on the parent folder. I was finally convinced when I had hundreds of files in the Downloads folder and upon pressing Del, the all went in the blink of an eye...Too quick for Windows to delete all those files.
OK, I see what OppfinnarJocke is saying, that when you delete a child object (file or folder) the parent folder inadvertently gets deleted too. If this is what is happening then it is undoubtedly a bug. But I don't think this entirely explains what has happened to me (and theapostle21).
In my case (in fact both times) I was given no warning, no confirmation, no little window that says "are you sure that you want to permanently delete these two files?"
Even if you have files selected by mistake and you press shift+delete to prevent those files going to the Recycle Bin you should still get a confirmation warning. I didn't either time, I just lost my files in an instant, no warning, no nothing. And even with clever (paid for) recovery software like Active@FileRecovery (which has never failed in the past) the files are gone like they never existed.
I cannot replicate the issue, so I wonder if it is something specific to the Download folder and recently downloaded files? I know that doesn't make sense, but I've never seen anything like this before.
Has anyone any more theories?
Same problem only have not deleted anything. Have a bunch of downloads and when reopen folder they are gone. Would like to fix the problem, but no clue.
There is definitely a vicious bug in Windows 7.
Clicking a folder or file and pressing the shift key, then press delete. Instead of a window popping up to confirm, all files/folders inside the parent folder gets deleted without any confirmation. Only files that are being used by another application or are marked read-only are left untouched.
I have experienced the same for 3 times at different periods. Can't replicate the issue no matter what key combinations I used.
Also, deleted files that size are bigger than 350MB are all unrecoverable by any undelete apps, which is absurd. The files affected are stored in a separate logical drive & have not been overwritten by any other files.
BTW, I am using a Lenovo Thinkpad SL510 notebook.
Just has this (or similar) happen in Window 10.
Machine origionally with windows 8 then updated to 8.1 and recently to 10.
It deleted loads of movie files from both a local drive and from an attached hard drive. Two seperate actions.
Basically I was cleaning up the directories. Delete different files etc and all was ok.
Then as far as I can recall:
1. I drag and drop a file --Casablanca.mp4 [file]-- (approx 1Gb) to a parent folder --Movies--.
2. I press delete for the subfolder --Casablanca [folder]--I was deleting from.
(I image the failure was that this was done before the move was finished)
--> result everything (like 20Gb) deletes without a trace.
....again i work in IT and the files are not in any obvious place.
...I will try to replicate it but the way the data disappears is scary
Directory structure
Movies
--Casablanca [folder]
-----Casablanca.mp4 [file]
I'll have a better look at it but it weird that there is very little on the internet about this. Its either a rare virus or a serious bug with the Microsoft OS's.
Anyone find out any more on this?
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