Jump to content

Recovering 'moved' files from a USB drive


jw2k_fr

Recommended Posts

Did a file copy of a bunch of video files from an external exFat USB drive to a NAS share.

... however...

I seem to have selected MOVE instead of COPY, so once the process completed I find my files are missing from the USB drive.  Obviously, this is not the end of the world, as I have the option of copying the files back from the NAS, however an undelete should be very quick as opposed to taking the file copy which will be ~18 hours.

*No write actions, of any kind, have been performed on the USB drive.*  Recuva was already installed on a system SSD, so no chance of having overwritten anything.

I immediately ran a Recuva scan in the 'video' folder, however it only sees a 'temp' subdirectory and a bunch of files therein which I deleted previously in a different operation (weeks ago).

The scan finds 347 files and ignores 7793 in 22 seconds.  I have the following ACTIONS options selected:

  • ticked       Show files found in hidden system directories
  • ticked       Show Zero byte files
  • ticked       Show securely overwritten files
  • unticked  Deep Scan
  • ticked       Scan for non-deleted files
  • ticked       Restore folder structure

There were three subdirectories which I moved, containing 433 files and some other folders, but not one of them shows up - not even the three main subdirs which contain everything else.  I tried a deep scan, however, that is going to take 9 hours to complete.  I canceled it after three minutes, and while it had found (and ignored) 8954 files this time, it still showed me the same number of files available to undelete.

Any suggestions before I start the copy back to the USB drive?   Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Moderators

Recuva does not 'undelete', whatever that means, but copies everything it finds to a separate device. So a recovery would take at least as long as just copying back the files. Just make sure your copy-from files are secure.

I know little about exfat so can't help with what Recuva found.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.