Is My Music Gone For Good?

[Reziel]

Recently I made a very stupid mistake. While uploading music to my Sansa MP3 player using Rhapsody on this computer, (because it can't use iTunes), I noticed something odd; almost all of my music was listed twice. I was worried that when I uploaded, it would upload every song to the MP3 player twice and I didn't have enough space for that, so I methodically deleted one entry for all of the songs that were in doubles over the course of about 15 minutes.

I HAD about 6 gb of music. . .

The only things that survived were the songs bought directly from iTunes and places in the iTunes folders, and a collection of music put in a different folder because it was brought from my brother's computer.

After investigating it, I'm pretty sure the problem was caused by when Rhapsody checked both "My Music" and my desktop, there's a large pile of music that is located on both the My Music folder and a copy of it on my desktop (well, there was. . .) and so it added those to the list of songs, twice, and I guess I wasn't smart enough to use a little bit of logic before I started mashing the delete button.

So here's where it gets hairy:

My brother, who made me the computer, had "System Restore" turned off to save memory. When the computer was first built, it only had a 60gb or so hard drive until we could get a new one, and unfortunately turning System Restore back on was forgotten.

I do have Avast! VRDB on, but I'm not sure if that can fix this problem.

The huge, huge mistake in question was made on July 3rd, 2008, around 1 or 2 in the afternoon.



Can my dumb-assery be fixed or am I stupid beyond redemption? Almost all of the lost music was not stored anywhere else. No flash drive big enough, and too expensive (or atleast it was in my eyes) to buy an external hard-drive for just my music.


Please help If I am required to give any more information, check any posts already made first, and then ask for what you need.

[wambulance]

It's very likely that you can get all of your music back BUT...

it probably involves taking your hard drive to a place that can do data recovery. It's also likely to be expensive. Since a hard disk never deletes anything (just writes over it really), the data is still there. Getting to it however, is the trick. You might check with a local computer shop and ask them about prices/options.

As far as doing it on your own there might be a way, but not one I'm familiar with.

Also, consider this; if you consider data recovery as an option, bear in mind that the longer the hard disk is in use, the less likely your deleted files will be recoverable. If the disk writes data enough times over the area where your files were stored, it may become impossible to recover it. Some of these so called "file shredder" programs do just that, they write erroneous data over the deleted file over and over to thwart recovery. Not using the drive is your best chance at getting the data back. Even if you aren't installing anything, Windows writes data all the time in swap files and during other processes which could present further problems.

[RandomNameHere]

If you are using windows vista you can try Shadow Explorer. ShadowExplorer.com - Downloads

[Reziel]

Originally Posted by wambulance

It's very likely that you can get all of your music back BUT...

it probably involves taking your hard drive to a place that can do data recovery. It's also likely to be expensive. Since a hard disk never deletes anything (just writes over it really), the data is still there. Getting to it however, is the trick. You might check with a local computer shop and ask them about prices/options.

As far as doing it on your own there might be a way, but not one I'm familiar with.

Also, consider this; if you consider data recovery as an option, bear in mind that the longer the hard disk is in use, the less likely your deleted files will be recoverable. If the disk writes data enough times over the area where your files were stored, it may become impossible to recover it. Some of these so called "file shredder" programs do just that, they write erroneous data over the deleted file over and over to thwart recovery. Not using the drive is your best chance at getting the data back. Even if you aren't installing anything, Windows writes data all the time in swap files and during other processes which could present further problems.

Thank you for your help, but finding out that one of my only real solutions is pricey is not what I wanted to hear, given that music costs money in the first place. But I guess the truth hurts.

And as far as that shadow explorer thing, I don't use Vista, so I guess that's out.

[outlaw2001it]

You don't need to take you hard drive to a place to recover data. There are solutions out there that are free, and some you have to pay for. Try this, and let us know what happens:

|MG| Restoration 2.5.14

Or try one of these:

Top 10 FREE Data Recovery Software » Raymond.CC Blog

[Jarhed7276]

Have you emptied the Recvcle Bin since you deleted them? If not they should be there.

[Reziel]

Originally Posted by Jarhed7276

Have you emptied the Recvcle Bin since you deleted them? If not they should be there.

I use the PC Pitstop utility "Optimize" about every week, and that empties your recycle bin.

[Reziel]

Originally Posted by outlaw2001it

You don't need to take you hard drive to a place to recover data. There are solutions out there that are free, and some you have to pay for. Try this, and let us know what happens:

|MG| Restoration 2.5.14

Or try one of these:

Top 10 FREE Data Recovery Software » Raymond.CC Blog

I used the restorer at the first link, and although it found a massive pile of "dCoverArt(numbers)".jpg files, nothing appeared to be the music itself.

EDIT: When I copy any of them to try and recover them, the media viewer attempts to look at them but then it simply says that the preview is unavailable. I'm not sure if that would be due to the lack of album art on a lot of the songs, or the file recovery process, or what. It's probably not important.

I'll check out the second link now I guess.