Files moved to recycle bin

Posts: 13 · gdawg 5 May 2021, 18:02

Hey guys-

I’m new to this forum and just upgraded to the donation version of FFS 11.9.

I’ve been using FFS as a tool to mirror my work drive to my backup drive. The other night, I guess I was tired or wasn’t paying attention and somehow must’ve hit the wrong button and moved some files that were meant to be backed up to my backup drive to the recycle bin.

I can see the path in the last log recorded, but I can’t seem to find a way to access the files in the bin.

Can anybody help me? I’m fully left-brained and these types of issues with data and stuff really confuse and derail me.

Thanks in advance.

I’m also currently running Disk Drill to see if I can recover from the work drive.

Garrison

Posts: 4055 · xCSxXenon 6 May 2021, 15:52

Did you send them to the recycle bin, or did FFS do it?

Posts: 13 · gdawg 6 May 2021, 15:54

FFS did it

Posts: 13 · gdawg 6 May 2021, 15:55

I’m not sure how this happened

Posts: 4055 · xCSxXenon 6 May 2021, 16:42

And when you go to Recycle Bin in File Explorer, they aren't there?

Posts: 13 · gdawg 6 May 2021, 16:43

I’m working on a Mac and I can see the recycle bin but either nothing is in there or I can’t access it. It’s not intuitive to find on my computer

Posts: 4055 · xCSxXenon 6 May 2021, 16:54

Are they both external drives? It may be possible that they don't support the Mac OS trash folder

Posts: 13 · gdawg 6 May 2021, 16:58

Yes they are both externals. There has to be a way FFS can help me get that stuff out of the recycle bin though no? Or am I just screwed there.

Posts: 13 · gdawg 6 May 2021, 16:59

By the way thanks for answering me. I’m so stressed

Posts: 4055 · xCSxXenon 6 May 2021, 17:16

Without knowing what format the externals are, I can't say for sure, but it sounds like they don't support the trash bin. Disk Drill is a good program, we use it in our store for data recovery as well. Since this happened so recently, chances are good that you will be able to recover it.

Posts: 13 · gdawg 6 May 2021, 17:20

I tried using disk drill but can’t find them anywhere

Posts: 13 · gdawg 6 May 2021, 17:20

What do you mean by what format the externals are

Posts: 4055 · xCSxXenon 6 May 2021, 17:25

Every storage device that has ever existed has to be formatted in a certain way. These different ways are called 'formats', like Fat32, NTFS, HFS, APFS, etc. There are a lot. Some support recycle bin/trash, some don't. Disk utility can tell you format they are in. Did you run disk drill on both drives?

Posts: 13 · gdawg 6 May 2021, 17:50

I ran disk drill on both drives, yes. And the drives are HFS+

Posts: 13 · gdawg 6 May 2021, 17:50

G drives 1 TB

Posts: 4055 · xCSxXenon 6 May 2021, 18:39

Is FFS set to delete to recycle bin or set to delete permanently?

Posts: 13 · gdawg 6 May 2021, 18:47

Recycle bin!

Posts: 4055 · xCSxXenon 6 May 2021, 19:01

If Disk Drill didn't find what you are looking for, chances are it is gone. That would be strange though, usually it takes a decent amount of use/time to overwrite deleted data. You could look into DiskWarrior, that is another utility that we have had success with. If neither find it, I would suggest taking it to a place that has more experience with data recovery. Unless you are confident in your recovery abilities, then it is likely gone for good, but from my experience with data recovery, that would be pretty unlikely.

Posts: 13 · gdawg 6 May 2021, 19:02

Thanks so much- I’m on a deadline, so I’m probably just going to stop using FFS, as I donated $100 to a company that doesn’t care enough to respond to me and help me figure this out. I appreciate your help very much.

Posts: 4055 · xCSxXenon 6 May 2021, 19:09

You caused this problem, not FFS. Good luck

Posts: 13 · gdawg 6 May 2021, 19:12

Either way, dude, the fact that I can’t get somebody on the phone to help me troubleshoot this, is a problem. I guarantee you most people haven’t donated anything to use this product.

Take your condescension and shove it.

Posts: 4055 · xCSxXenon 6 May 2021, 19:29

Lol FFS isn't a commercial product and it's free, you won't ever get phone support for this software model. The single dev is fairly active on the forum and can't help every person with every issue, and typically focuses on problems with the software and not user-caused issues. Donating doesn't make you any more of a priority or more worthy of help, it's literally named FreeFileSync. Donations probably aren't the primary focus.
No condescension from me, just trying keep the facts straight, which is that FFS is an amazing program developed/supported for free by an intelligent dev that takes pride in his work. As with most software, it only does exactly what it is told to do.
Again, good luck, and I would recommend having somebody with experience take a look if it is that important. Every minute those drives are plugged in is reducing the chances at recovering data.

Posts: 2 · wmartin 10 Dec 2021, 20:57

Hi, I'm new here and a noob with FFS as I've installed it today.
I tried some backups, miror (with versioning) and syncs left>>right (with deletion to the recycle bin).
And what was my surprise when I found an empty recycle bin.
Tons of files have been deleted in the previous ffs job and nothing in the bin and no way to access deleted files from the GUI.
But, the files are in the recycle bin, in the admin account recycle bin. Of course, I had to run the job with admin rights to save all \dir\files of my disk.
I don't know if this is the way to solve the problem here, but I hope it can help someone.

To finnish, I think FFS is powerfull, simple to use and online manual is accessible for everyone.
Expert mode with variables/conf tweaks and silent run have to well understood before use.
If network jobs are also easy, I'll definitely update to donation version.

Posts: 2 · wmartin 10 Dec 2021, 21:11

gdawg says "I can see the path in the last log recorded, but I can’t seem to find a way to access the files in the bin."

I think my previous message is not the right way.
The logs are also written in the \appdata\roaming of the user that runs the job.

If you can access the log in your user session and the recycle bin of this session is empty, the solution is elsewhere. Have a look to admin recycle bin, but...