Recuva: "The device is not ready" & missing filed "Not deleted"

Recuva
1
I'm a new user. Two days ago I had a sub folder with sub folders under it, in total hundreds of .avi files up to 2 GB. Yesterday they disappeared from both Windows Explorer and TreeSize Professional.
I thought maybe I accidentally shift-deleted the top folder.
Recuva found all the files, but says they are "Not deleted" and "No overwritten clusters detected."
So I highlight one of the avi files, hit 'recover' selected a different drive location, and Recuva chugs a second then reports "Drive not ready"
I tried several ways - same drive, different drive, with and without 'retain folder structure" option, also selected different single files and multiple files - all came back "Drive not ready".
What to do? Why does Recuva say "Files not deleted" when the same files appear to be deleted because they are not showing up in two different Windows Explorer type programs?
2

Duh, my bad. Problem solved, no fault to Recuva.

I feel stupid because it's not the first time I've done this: I accidentally moved that top folder over to another folder, where I never looked for it until just now.

To help confuse things, when I downloaded a new file normally stored in the 'missing' folder, Newsleecher automatically created the same original folder, but now with only one file in it.

Recuva did help me go looking to other folders by insisting "File not deleted".