Folder missing

[NancyDrew]

I was moving files within an external hardrive, and suddenly, I noticed my Photos folder was gone. I made this folder in the hardrive that contains pretty much every photo I have. I can't find it in Finder, or in Trash. I tried manually searching for it in the hardrive, and on the computer. Zilch. And I am running Data Rescue 3 right now. So far, nothing. I have MAC OS X 10.6.4 on a Macbook that is running Snow Leopord. Does anyone have some good advice? I cannot find it even when when I showed invisible files using Automator. Please help me. Thank you.

 

[Spawn_Dooley]

Hello NancyDrew ... oh dear ...

If these are your only copy and you really want to retrieve them then STOP using the computer AND the Ext HD. Take them immediately to wherever is near to you that can recover the files.

Have you tried a Spotlight search of both the internal & ext drives? Do you think you trashed the folder or it's just gone off the radar?

If they wen't to the Trash while the Ext drive was connected and you then disconnected the Ext drive without emptying the Trash, then you wouldn't be able to find them on your internal drive - if you connected the Ext drive back up to your Mac ... well, the folder would appear in your Mac's Trash ... does that make sense?

What happens when files are deleted (meaning the Trash has been emptied) is that the path to the original location is lost (regarding from a search point of view) and their original file name is stripped away and these files just sit on your HD waiting for the System to write over them.

So, the quickest way to go is to stop using the ext drive and your Mac and try to take them somewhere that does Data Retrieval ... it might be costly but really, when it comes to our precious photos and files, the more backups you can do, the better ....

Over all, you have done some really good troubleshooting already, just fingers x-ed that the photos aren't lost ... and please promise to start backing up your data.

 

[bobbyv33]

I've had this happen to me before. Try searching for the name of something that was IN the folder. A photo that you know the name of for sure. Sometimes what happens is that the name of the folder gets changed by accident and you don't even realize you did it.
As I said, do a find for an item IN the folder. If you find something (I hope you do), select it and look at the bottom of the window. There it will give you the name of the folder it is in and the complete hierarchy of the photo.
Good Luck