Transparent Folder = files lost?!!

[runekuda]

Hi guys.

All of my work - possibly lost!!!! Please help......

I have this folder where a large portion of my work is placed. This folder is now transparent. It can't be opened and the files are not showing. I need to recover the content somehow, but I have no idea where to begin, since the folder says it has "Zero Bytes" when I right click and hit "Get Info".

Also it says the Last Modified date was 24 Jan 1984 09:00. I think thats really weird for starters, so let me list up the things I can remember that I've done lately on my Mac. Maybe one of those things could be related to the issue i'm facing.

1. I recently moved most of my work folders including the now transparent folder to an external drive and started backing up to another external drive (using the "Carbon Copy Cloner" dowloaded from App Store). That way none of my content is stored on my computer, since my iMac is old and I was starting to fear it might crash and all my files would be lost for good.

2. Changed the TimeMachine settings, but couldn't back up my computer to my only external drive that has enough free space (its an old one). When I try it says something about the drive I wanna backup is case-sensitive but the external drive is not or something like that. TimeMachine is currently "Waiting to Complete First Backup".

3. Deleted a lot of files from my computer, but was SO CAREFUL not to mess up, so I didn't trash this peticular folder. Plus if I accidentally deleted it, it wouldn't it still be showing as a transparent folder on the ext drive would it??

4. Ran the "Verify Disk Permissions" and "Repair Disk Permissions" in the Disk Utility App.

5. Added a second screen to my setup and placed my External harddrives on the desktop on there.

So yeah, I really hope someone can help with this, because I'm getting kind of desperate. Anyone seen threads with someone having a similar issue and got it solved??

Many thanks, Rune

iMac (21.5-inch, Mid 2010)
OS X Yosemite 10.10.5

 

[chscag]

A folder with zero bytes is not good news since that means it contains no data. I'm not sure what it is you did in your explanation above especially the part about using CCC to backup to an external drive from another external drive? Are you saying that you originally moved your files and that particular folder to an external drive and then used CCC to make a clone of that drive? Let's not worry about Time Machine for the present.

If what you say you did (as I understand it) is true, then your folder should be present with all its data in two places. The only way that folder would have been zeroed out is if you accidentally overwrote it during the cloning process and did not tell CCC to turn on its "SafetyNet". The CCC SafetyNet will preserve any file that it overwrites or deletes so that you can later decide what to do with it. In the meantime, go over all your work and closely examine all the external hard drives to make sure the folder isn't tucked away somewhere.