Is everything indeed lost?!.

Hi I bought my daughter a portable hard drive for Christmas for her mac book which is a few years old. I got it at the mac store in abbotsford. I got a call late last night that she was transfering all her music and pictures over when she went to delete the old stuff already transfered on her macbook it seemed to have erased the stuff on her portable hard drive as well so all her stuff is lost. years of I tunes and wedding pics and other important stuff. she said she didn't unplug the portable hard drive before doing this and thinks she lost everything. have you heard of this happening before and is everything indeed lost? I don't know much about computers but felt so bad for her. please help!
Jeanne

It's possible she may have accidentally deleted what she transferred to the external hard drive as well as what was on the Mac. Tell her to look in her "Trash" to see what's there and do not empty it!

Also tell her to not use the external hard drive nor her Mac if in fact the files are missing and not in the Trash. Using either one will make it very difficult to recover the missing files. Let us know what transpires and we can advise you further on what to do.

Mac external drive issue

Thanks so much-- her husband has already taken it down to the mac store and they said they thought they could retrieve the info but it would take three days. and they weren't sure if they could. I will talk to her tonight and see if she checked the trash. I passed on that she should not use her mac. keep your fingers crossed
Jeanne