Genealogy Chat

I was trying to ''cut and paste'' a folder from one drive to another. Lots of stuff (about 2000) that had been on there forever. Just as it got to the end of the transfer, a box comes up and says ''cannot move folder'' the screen freezes and the computer refuses to do anything but be restarted. Where are my files? They are not back at the orginal spot; have I lost them forever? I have Windows 98; don't think it has a recovery program.

Try right clicking on the start button and then click on search. Enter the name of your file and if in doubt about where to search ask it to search in all places in the drop down box, one at a time. When you spot the file, click on it to open it. Jay

Janet, the original folder is still where it was before I started this, but all the items are missing.

Have they gone to the new drive, but as separate items? Unless you saved changes at some point, I would have thought they would be somewhere, but I have only worked with ME and XP and am not a ICT buff. jay

not sure but does not '' CUT'' remove the items? ready to paste, where ''COPY'' does just that ready to paste and leaves the originals intact............ Bob

Nothing on the new drive..... I don't know the names of any of them unfortunately. They were pictures, articles and whatnot that I had copied over the years. I was moving them off C to another drive, so I could go through them later and sort them. (might have saved myself that job - got to make fun of it, or I'll tear up)

That's right Bob. Did I just paste them into oblivion?

What drive were you moving them to? Do you have a partitioned C drive or were you moving them to an external hard drive (or a 2nd hard drive?) Ian

Must admit, I always use copy and paste and then (after checking I've done it right) delete the original, rather than use cut. Oh dear, Margaret - I do feel for you. jay

You could try looking in the windows Temporary Folder C:\Windows\Temp. First, in the explorer window click on the Tools option then Folder options. Click on the View tab. Under the Advanced Setting, where it says Hidden Files and Folders. Check, Show Hidden files and folders Click Apply then OK. This will allow you to see every file and folder on your computer, including important system ones. Have you tried searching for a particular file instead of the folder? If it cannot find one of the sepcific files then the data will most likely be lost. I know its a bit late now but if you have important data you must make sure that you back it up twice a week or so, or when you make big changes, on to another media such as CD, floppy disk or DAT drive. Hope this helps.

I would certainly agree with the advice not to use 'cut' as that removes the original file and puts it on the clipboard. If you get a hang-up or power failure whilst it's on the clipboard you've lost the data. Copy, check and only then delete the original. And backup, backup, backup!

Sorry for the delay in answering - dinner time over here. Ian, I have a partitioned drive (C,D & E) and was moving from C to E. I have had a look for them in all three drives. Don't know any of the names of the files or items in the folders, but I know they were all prior to a certain date. It was part of the information transferred from my old hard drive in August 2003. I basically thought I had lost it in 2003 because of the way it had been ''saved'' by the computer store. (You'd expect them to know better) I usually copy and paste, but I decided to do one step instead of two - never had a problem before. It was information that you know you have, even if you don't know exactly what it is - that kind of thing. And now, I don't know what I've lost!!!

Margaret, as far as I can remember, they didn't include any photos, thank goodness. But lots of articles from papers, health info, cartoon characters type pictures, stuff like that etc. And they were all before I did any family tree searching, so I haven't lost any of that. I will try the Picasa programme and check if that can see something I can't.

Go to search and ask to search for images on **ALL**your partitions. Once you have found a lost image, the other stuff will be in the same location. Using the 'cut' facility doesn't delete your stuff. It will be on your clipboard I suspect, if the paste function failed. From a dim memory, I believe that '98 used a clipboard, but I stand to be corrected on that. I suspect that your E partition may be the one that has your operating system on it, and that will be why you couldn't paste everything, as you would probably have used up all the room. Try all options before loading any more software like picasso, esp as you are running a triple partitioned drive. Don't worry too much - it won't have been lost - you just have to find it. Try the above search - it should work. Ian

Ian, I tried doing a search on C,D,E for clipboard - all that comes up is a shortcut and a picture of a clipboard. Because I don't know what any of the files were called, I'm having a slight problem looking for them....... C is my operating system and is only half full. I wanted to move the records because once I sorted them they would be staying on E - easier to move around on one drive rather than switching back and forth (that was the plan anyway!!) The problem may have been because the folder was called 'My Documents' and that is why it couldn't be moved -- not the one which is part of my current system, but was part of the records copied from my old hard drive. Will keep searching.... (Off for a little while now -- son has to do his homework)