Major disaster after deleting what I thought was my Flashdrive?

[Guest]

Talk about a panic ? I backed up all my stuff to an external Hard Drive, then wanted to delete all the stuff on a Flash Drive which was now on the Hard Drive as I want to use it on a Digital Photo Frame so only want those Photos on it, I opened what I thought was the Flash drive and deleted everything on it then thought I would just check a couple of the items in my Documents just in case, and was horrifed to find nothing at all, I had deleted all my Documents Photos etc etc etc
Luckily I managed to restore them from the Waste Bin but wasn't sure how to do that so sent them all to my Documents ?
What I want to know is why did that happen ?
I went to my Computer and right clicked on the Flash Drive and opened so assumed all the stuff that appeared was on the Flash Drive ?

[Elaine ..Spain]

I opened what I thought was the Flash drive and deleted everything

Sorry to say Val, but I think you have answered your own question.
I cannot see how you could have deleted files from your hard drive if you had selected the Flash drive.
I can only assume you incorrectly selected the wrong drive.

[WendyPusey]

Have to agree with Elaine Val.

[Margaret N]

Hello Val,

I also think much the same the only puzzle is that the hard drive usually asks 'are you sure'. I once lost my photographs light years ago and now take a look at the menu bar at the top where it will confirm which drive you are using.
Having said all that it could easily happen again as these 'mice' move very fast and are hard to catch. Watch out!

[Guest]

sorry I have not described it well as usual ,
I backed up my stuff to my hard drive then unplugged it, I then inserted my flash drive to delete all the stuff on it that was now on the hard drive anyway, as I wanted to use the empty flash drive to upload my photos to for my digital photo frame but somehow I had deleted my stuff on the pc and not on the flash drive ?

[Elaine ..Spain]

sorry I have not described it well as usual ,
I backed up my stuff to my hard drive then unplugged it, I then inserted my flash drive to delete all the stuff on it that was now on the hard drive anyway, as I wanted to use the empty flash drive to upload my photos to for my digital photo frame but somehow I had deleted my stuff on the pc and not on the flash drive ?

That's the what I thought you meant! I still say that I think you probably selected the wrong drive.

[JudithM]

I went to my Computer and right clicked on the Flash Drive and opened so assumed all the stuff that appeared was on the Flash Drive ?

Perhaps your hand shook and the mouse slipped up the menu to the hard drive, or dragged over everything on the menu - I did something similar the other day - realised everything in the menu I was looking at had been highlighted rather than just the bit I wanted to delete :o

Luckily I managed to restore them from the Waste Bin but wasn't sure how to do that so sent them all to my Documents ?

If/when it happens again right click the items in the recycle bin and select restore to put them back where they belong.

[Guest]

I will not be trying that again ever lol frightened the life out of me .
When I clicked to restore the stuff back from the waste bin it landed on my desktop ???? is that normal ? I then spent ages sending each individual file to my docs as I did not want a load of files on the desktop .
I think I need a course in how to handle Flash drives.

[Margaret N]

Val,

I expect that you have sorted things by now but if not when you click on Documents Folder on the Desktop do you not get the option to send them to Documents on your start menu? Otherwise you should be able to drag the folder to the start up folder via Windows Explorer.
If I have miss understood your problem tell me to have an early night for a change! Hope this may help.

[Anne in Carlisle]

Gosh - thats so easily done. I usually have two windows open and drag and drop from my computer to a flash drive or separate hard disc. I'm always checking I'm going the right way and telling myself to 'keep brain in gear'. Its so easy to mistake one window for the other specially because the 'heading' on the window only reflects the file you have open - it doesn't always say which is which. My rule for myself is to keep the computer window on the left of the screen and the detachable drive on the right.

Hope you are sorted out now - there's nothing worse than that sinking feeling that something dreadful has happened.

Anne

[Caroline]

When you are doing that sort of thing, it is safer to do it through Windows Explorer (usually in Accessories), then you can see easily which drive and which folders you are working with.

The pane on the right is the folder you are working with and the left hand menu clearly shows the tree diagram of all the drives and folders so you open and close them and drag folders and files to where you want them to go.

[Guest]

thanks all for your replies I now realise I know a lot less about this than I thought so am buying a new Flash Drive rather than messing about.