All my files were deleted - what did I do wrong?

My desktop was cluttered beyond belief - so I created a new folder w/i my pictures folder and just copied them over to there.
Then I deleted the originals off of the desktop.
But, turns out that all the copies of them were deleted - what did I do wrong?

I didn't realize that they were all deleted until after I emptied my trashcan.

*edit* ... actually, I realize that all of my pictures in all of my folders other than the main picture folder and a few others have been deleted!
What on earth happened?

On top of that - the quick-click files I had in my side-bar of the finder (right underneath the applications and so on) aren't accessible anymore because they've been deleted - so how to I get rid of them?

Now I'm thinking it's not something I did - but a major glitch? The other day my comp did crash.

how did you copy them? and did you confirm that they were actual copies and not aliases?

Silverfroth said:

My desktop was cluttered beyond belief - so I created a new folder w/i my pictures folder and just copied them over to there.
Then I deleted the originals off of the desktop.
But, turns out that all the copies of them were deleted - what did I do wrong?

I didn't realize that they were all deleted until after I emptied my trashcan.

*edit* ... actually, I realize that all of my pictures in all of my folders other than the main picture folder and a few others have been deleted!
What on earth happened?

Click to expand...

Sounds like you created aliases (shortcuts) in your folder but left the actual pictures on the desktop, then when you trashed them they were gone. Sounds like maybe you have been doing that all along instead of actually copying the files. I drag rather than copy, that way I know I actually moved them.

eric said:

how did you copy them? and did you confirm that they were actual copies and not aliases?

Click to expand...

I think you just hit the nail on the head. That is the first thing that came into my mind when I read the message. Aliases.

Well how can you look to see if it's an alias or a shortcut and not the actual file?

I copied them my selecting thm, right click, copy....and then pasted them in.

that should have worked.
did you confirm that the copy wrked - that you were able to see the files at some point in the new location?

Try a spotlight search.

You're right ... they were aliases...
I did a test-run of moving files - just like i did with all the pictures - and sure enough - right click: it said 'alias'.

So that takes care of one problem - good thing I, without knowing, left the important ones on my digital camera - I lost a few, but nothing serious.

However - there's the issues with all the other non-picture files that I need to figure out.

Every text file, chat-log session and so on that Ive created solely with this computer is gone.
I have files I've imported and downloaded - but everything else s gone.
Beyond bizarre.
Even when they're mixed together in a folder - if it was created by and on this computer it's *poor*

I've never heard of such a thing.

External Firewire hard drive 320 GB. $149.99
Carbon Copy Cloner: free
Being able to restore your system in under 5 minutes: freaking priceless.

You could clean out your user cache and the system cache by either using MainMenu (I love it, use it every day to run Tiger's tasks manually) or you could download OnyX, they both do the same thing. When the caches are too full, the system reacts strangely sometimes.

MainMenu.

OnyX.

This won't bring back the accidental deletions though. Backups are important. I use SuperSuper! and it's great. If you buy the licence, you can even schedule backups in the background while you do other stuff.