"Files missing from a flash drive?" Topic

How do files go missing from a flash drive? My daughter just lost 3 weeks of work on a project due in 3 days. she had been working on it at school and saving it to her personal flash drive, but now most of the work seems to be missing. Any ideas/thoughts?

Was that all that was on the flash drive? Perhaps right click on the drive and check properties. check the used space/free space and see what is there. If there are files there already make sure their total and used space add up.

Also perhaps somehow they have been hidden? May need to untick the hidden check box in folder options.

Perhaps its saved on the PC at school somewhere as well?

Other than that I'm sorry i can't suggest more.

cheers
Jon.

Perhaps its saved on the PC at school somewhere as well?

Probably not saving it where she thought she was saving it!

Computers don't do things by themselves.

Check "My Documents" on the computer she was using – if she was in a hurry she may not have noticed that the save path was a default path.

Unless you deleted them, they pretty much don't. Almost all of the types of errors that can happen in a flash drive would not just erase "some files", but also render the drive completely unusable.

korsun0 and alfritz probably have the right tack. Either she wasn't aware of where they were being saved, she wasn't aware that the OS moved them en masse, or she wasn't aware that she deleted them.

This is one of the travesties of the current age of computing – people wanting computers to automatically "do stuff" for them to the extent that they no longer know what is actually going on in them …

Sometimes people drag and drop files in the wrong place. They click and drag the file and as the cursor moves down the list of folders it highlights each one. Often people release the mouse before the focus has transferred to the folder they want and it ends up in the previous folder – the one which is still highlighted. (they are clicking and dragging faster than the computer can keep up!)

Also try plugging in the flash drive and checking in the bin, as they were accidentally deleted they may still be in there unless the bin has been emptied.

I've had many students save a shortcut to the document instead of the actual document. Need to find the Computer she was working on.

Thanks folks!

A Gent of my acquaintance, alas no longer permitted to post here, had this advice:

"If she never saved them, then they can't be recovered. If actually deleted, she might want to go to komando.com a site I highly recommend (as well as her radio show if you are lucky enough to get it).

She should search on the download section for "FreeUndelete."

I share this in the hope it might prove of help. Having been scuttled by computer more than once with mss and more going lost for keeps, the Gent with this suggestion and I truly sympathize.

Good Luck!

TVAG

One other possibility, is that she unplugged the flash drive while the computer was writing to it – this can cause corruption of a file as it is in the middle of being changed as the drive is removed.

As always a single copy of an important document is a problem. One of the easiest methods of making a backup is emailing the file to yourself.

Always save 3 copies of important files: usb stick, pc hard drive, cloud storage

The latest from the daughter is that she found a some files on the computer at school and was able to reconstruct what was missing. Thanks for all the help!