Moving folder from external hd

I did a bad bad thing...I was backing up my pc harddrive
folders onto an external hard drive (MP3). I accidentally
dragged and dropped a folder from MP3 onto desktop
harddrive folder (same name) and thereby replaced most
recent version of folder with old version of folder
(i.e., I did the opposite of what I wanted to do). Any
way to retrieve pc harddrive folder that has been
overwritten? Thanks!

NO. The original was replaced by the external drive version.

"michelle" wrote in message
...
I did a bad bad thing...I was backing up my pc harddrive
folders onto an external hard drive (MP3). I accidentally
dragged and dropped a folder from MP3 onto desktop
harddrive folder (same name) and thereby replaced most
recent version of folder with old version of folder
(i.e., I did the opposite of what I wanted to do). Any
way to retrieve pc harddrive folder that has been
overwritten? Thanks!

The odds are very good that the original folder and files are still present
on the hard drive, just not listed in the directory. However, as time
passes, they will be overwritten, since they are now marked as "free space".

So, immedaitely stop writing to the hard drive. Do not shut down, since
startup./shutdown does some writing in the background.

Get some file recovery software and hope for the best. Most recovery
software offers a few trial/demo, which will show you what it can see and
hence recover. However the demos do not allow recovery, or only allow it
for very small files. The pay-versions allow the recovery.

If the partition is formattedas FAT32, Norton Utilties comes with an
emergency floppy and an UNERASE function. If NTFS, forget Norton Utilities.
Otherwise, looking things like Active@undelete (not a web address, but a
software), R-undelete, file scavenger, etc. Try a Google search on "file
unerase" or "file undelete". You should get a lot of hits.

Be sure to avoid any software that must be installed on the hard drive,
since you do not want to write to that hard drive. Also, recover the files
to a separate location (i.e., separate drive, paritition, removeable media,
etc).
"michelle" wrote in message
...
I did a bad bad thing...I was backing up my pc harddrive
folders onto an external hard drive (MP3). I accidentally
dragged and dropped a folder from MP3 onto desktop
harddrive folder (same name) and thereby replaced most
recent version of folder with old version of folder
(i.e., I did the opposite of what I wanted to do). Any
way to retrieve pc harddrive folder that has been
overwritten? Thanks!

The odds are very good that the original folder and files are still present
on the hard drive, just not listed in the directory. However, as time
passes, they will be overwritten, since they are now marked as "free space".

So, immedaitely stop writing to the hard drive. Do not shut down, since
startup./shutdown does some writing in the background.

Get some file recovery software and hope for the best. Most recovery
software offers a few trial/demo, which will show you what it can see and
hence recover. However the demos do not allow recovery, or only allow it
for very small files. The pay-versions allow the recovery.

If the partition is formattedas FAT32, Norton Utilties comes with an
emergency floppy and an UNERASE function. If NTFS, forget Norton Utilities.
Otherwise, looking things like Active@undelete (not a web address, but a
software), R-undelete, file scavenger, etc. Try a Google search on "file
unerase" or "file undelete". You should get a lot of hits.

Be sure to avoid any software that must be installed on the hard drive,
since you do not want to write to that hard drive. Also, recover the files
to a separate location (i.e., separate drive, paritition, removeable media,
etc).
"michelle" wrote in message
...
I did a bad bad thing...I was backing up my pc harddrive
folders onto an external hard drive (MP3). I accidentally
dragged and dropped a folder from MP3 onto desktop
harddrive folder (same name) and thereby replaced most
recent version of folder with old version of folder
(i.e., I did the opposite of what I wanted to do). Any
way to retrieve pc harddrive folder that has been
overwritten? Thanks!

The odds are very good that the original folder and files are still present
on the hard drive, just not listed in the directory. However, as time
passes, they will be overwritten, since they are now marked as "free space".

So, immedaitely stop writing to the hard drive. Do not shut down, since
startup./shutdown does some writing in the background.

Get some file recovery software and hope for the best. Most recovery
software offers a few trial/demo, which will show you what it can see and
hence recover. However the demos do not allow recovery, or only allow it
for very small files. The pay-versions allow the recovery.

If the partition is formattedas FAT32, Norton Utilties comes with an
emergency floppy and an UNERASE function. If NTFS, forget Norton Utilities.
Otherwise, looking things like Active@undelete (not a web address, but a
software), R-undelete, file scavenger, etc. Try a Google search on "file
unerase" or "file undelete". You should get a lot of hits.

Be sure to avoid any software that must be installed on the hard drive,
since you do not want to write to that hard drive. Also, recover the files
to a separate location (i.e., separate drive, paritition, removeable media,
etc).
"michelle" wrote in message
...
I did a bad bad thing...I was backing up my pc harddrive
folders onto an external hard drive (MP3). I accidentally
dragged and dropped a folder from MP3 onto desktop
harddrive folder (same name) and thereby replaced most
recent version of folder with old version of folder
(i.e., I did the opposite of what I wanted to do). Any
way to retrieve pc harddrive folder that has been
overwritten? Thanks!