Accidentally Deleted a File Off Flash Drive

[Cezna]

I was writing a Turing program, about 350 - 400 lines, about 3 - 4 hours work (it was all brand-new stuff for me, so I had to learn how to do it).
I wanted to cut it out of one directory and put it in another.

I cut it out, and when I pasted, it said it was already in use, and so I deleted the folder (thinking it was empty, since the file had a few other Turing files with it and some pictures), and then closed the window that was running the file, and went back to the source directory to cut it again.
It wasn't there, and it wasn't in the old directory.

Since it was on my flash drive, it didn't go to the recycle bin.
I try un-delete and undo and control + z and everything else I could think of, and then had my friend go through with Windows DOS and try everything he could think of, but nothing worked.

Is there any way I can get this file back?

PS: I know a lot of people will say I should back up my stuff, and I do, very frequently, in fact that is what I was about to do right after I moved the file into it's proper place (as I have everything on my flash drive categorized) when I accidentally deleted the file.

[andrew.]

Recuva

[Cezna]

Tried it, but the files didn't show up.
Thanks anyway.

[andrew.]

Really? Recuva always worked for me. Once my uncle deleted every picture off his camera. I was able to restore about 95% of them.

[copthesaint]

If you deleted of flash drive from school, you have 3 days to recover it before its lost forever, you have to talk to whom ever is in charge of you schools computers at your highschool, and ask HIM to recover your files. If you wait too long to do this, your screwed.

[Cezna]

It wuz at muh house....

[copthesaint]

You can't permanently delete it then, unless you went into your recycling bin and deleted it after, emptied the bin, or unless you were deleting too much for it to fit in your recycling bin.

[Cezna]

It never went to the recycle bin, as this is the first place I checked.

I have deleted many things off my flash drive before (usually intentionally ), on various computers running various operating systems, and the files have been of widely ranging sizes.

I have never had any of them go into the recycle bin.

[TheGuardian001]

Stuff deleted directly from a flash drive is never moved to the recycle bin, cop (not on windows systems, at least)... That would mean taking something that currently occupies no hard disk space, and moving it onto the hard drive so that it occupies space.

If Recuva didn't show any recoverable files on the flash drive, it's gone. No copy should have been made on your pc.

[DtY]

Are you sure it's not in the recycling bin? Put the thumb drive in, and then check the recycling bin?

[TheGuardian001]

DtY @ Thu Jun 17, 2010 3:00 pm wrote:

Are you sure it's not in the recycling bin? Put the thumb drive in, and then check the recycling bin?

Stuff from flash drives does not go to the recycling bin. Ever. That would mean that deleting files from a flash drive would put information that was never on your hard drive in the first place on to your hard drive.

[Cezna]

Checked the recycle like 30 times because I was so horrified when I realized it was gone.

I also did a test to see if I could use undelete, aka, control + z, or the button up at the top of a window (which would mean it was in the recycle).

Note that I did this like half an hour after I deleted the file, a half hour during which I tried everything else I could think of to get the file back.

I created a new folder, did not rename it, deleted it, and then tried control + z and the undelete button in the tab at the top of the window (I think it is in Edit). I did the same test with a Turing file.

I could restore it if I was doing this test on one of the drives permanently installed on my computer, such as the C: drive, but I could not restore the file if it was coming off the F: drive.

Also, whenever I delete anything off my flash drive, it doesn't show the little animation of the file going into the recycle, but instead shows the little papers coming out of the file on the left and "exploding" on the right.

Just so everyone knows, I have rewritten the program now (better, stronger and faster), so I no longer need to get it back, but I would still like to know why I couldn't...

[andrew.]

By default, the recycling bin is disabled for removable flash drives. Unless you turned this feature on, the file should not have been moved to the recycle bin. If you did turn it on however, there should be a hidden folder called $RECYCLED or something like that. Inside of there would have stuff that you placed in the recycle bin.

[Cezna]

How do I turn this feature on?
Is it a setting for the flash drive, or a setting for the computer?
Also, where should this hidden $RECYLCED folder be, on the desktop?

[TheGuardian001]

It's possible that your flash drive simply handles deletion as permanent by actually resetting the data, as opposed to marking the space as empty while not actually modifying the data (although that seems unlikely.)

Did you run recuva with admin privileges? Because it can't correctly access usb devices without them for some reason.