PLEASE learn from my mistake!

[Larry 1969]

I've been imaging for a few years now and I don't often visit this "Beginners forum" but I have to share this experience...

A few nights ago the sky was amazing. The clearest I've seen in a long time so I set up despite a 50% moon. I focused on NGC 7023 until moon rise and then it was off to M45 for the rest of the evening. When I woke in the morning I went through some of the nicest subs I've captured to date! I transferred them from my OTA mounted mini PC to a 1TB solid state portable hard drive and then to my processing PC. I've done this a hundred times and didn't think twice about it...

When I got home from work I decided to start processing so I opened the file to find it completely empty!
I searched everywhere but all of that nice data was lost!!!

The lesson is, use COPY and paste for transferring your files instead of CUT and paste... I could have easily retrieved that data if I had done that...
I'm pretty sure one of the transfers was messed up and I could have simply went back a got it from the mini PC... It's COPY and paste for me from now on... I'll go back and delete the files after they have all been successfully transferred ti my processing PC...

Larry

[Graeme1858]

Good advice Larry.

Regards

Graeme

[Bigzmey]

Bummer! I hope you will have a chance to collect more good data soon.

[Butterfly Maiden]

A lesson learned the hard way Larry.

You will never do that again.

[Gfamily]

Have you tried using Recuva software to see if you can retrieve the data from the OTA PC?

[Larry 1969]

Have you tried using Recuva software to see if you can retrieve the data from the OTA PC?

I've never heard of that software. Interesting.
Thanks for the tip!

Larry

[turboscrew]

Sorry to hear. I can imagine how bad you must have felt.

[AstroBee]

Using the recovery software mentioned might do the trick. The data is not actually erased from the drive until you overwrite that space. The software simply deletes the lookup table for the location of the data so new data has permission to overwrite that space.

[SkyHiker]

Yup I used Recuva after upgrading from Win 7 to Win 10 - don't ask... but I got almost everything back. Try that!

I always use cut and paste except I do it manually because a one-time mistake can be corrected I think.

[Ozypic]

Ah yes I've had 68 yrs of those moments, but as stated its always worth trying to undelete with whatever software you can find. They quiet often worked for me. Its all about how long you leave it I think.... Phill

[Thefatkitty]

I agree, Henk (Skyhiker) is right. Worked for me quite a few times. And if you haven't done much with your drive (installing programs, etc) you have a really good chance of getting it all back

I seriously hope it works for you; be great to see what you got!

All the best,

[bobharmony]

Ouch, Larry! I am so sorry to hear of your trouble. Hopefully recovery will be possible!

Bob

[Greenman]

I Just wondered if it worked Larry? These errors follow us around Gremlin like waiting for us to get to the familiarity causes contempt phase.

[carastro]

So sorry to hear of this and please let us know if you manage to retrieve the data.

I always copy and paste when I do this for fear of losing data. Trouble is it rarely gets deleted off my imaging laptop. This has been handy once or twice when I have been at an Astro camp away from home when I have wanted to combine new data with old data.

Carole

[Juno16]

Sorry to hear that Larry. Hopefully recovery will get your data back.
I also have had a few issues with cut and paste. I always copy and paste from my imaging laptop to a usb stick, then copy and paste from the stick to my processing pc. Once I see all of the data safe and sound on my processing pc, I delete the trail.
I also image the processing pc drive and copy it to a spare hdd periodically as extra insurance.
Please let is know if recovery works!

[Larry 1969]

Sorry to hear that Larry. Hopefully recovery will get your data back.
I also have had a few issues with cut and paste. I always copy and paste from my imaging laptop to a usb stick, then copy and paste from the stick to my processing pc. Once I see all of the data safe and sound on my processing pc, I delete the trail.
I also image the processing pc drive and copy it to a spare hdd periodically as extra insurance.
Please let is know if recovery works!

Hi Jim,
I'm doing exactly as you describe from now on. It takes 7 hours to collect data and only a split second to lose it...
I will download that software and try to recover it but the following 2 nights were nice as well so I did manage to get a decent image.

Larry

[lostone]

I've been imaging for a few years now and I don't often visit this "Beginners forum" but I have to share this experience...

A few nights ago the sky was amazing. The clearest I've seen in a long time so I set up despite a 50% moon. I focused on NGC 7023 until moon rise and then it was off to M45 for the rest of the evening. When I woke in the morning I went through some of the nicest subs I've captured to date! I transferred them from my OTA mounted mini PC to a 1TB solid state portable hard drive and then to my processing PC. I've done this a hundred times and didn't think twice about it...

When I got home from work I decided to start processing so I opened the file to find it completely empty!
I searched everywhere but all of that nice data was lost!!!

The lesson is, use COPY and paste for transferring your files instead of CUT and paste... I could have easily retrieved that data if I had done that...
I'm pretty sure one of the transfers was messed up and I could have simply went back a got it from the mini PC... It's COPY and paste for me from now on... I'll go back and delete the files after they have all been successfully transferred ti my processing PC...

Larry

Ouch and than Ouch again. I have always done the Copy & Paste. Sometimes onto a lightning drive and sometime straight over the network, depending on how many files. Not until they get backed up onto my NAS do I even think about removing them off my Eagle.

Stuff like this happens to the best of us, I forget how many times I have forgot a check box or some other little stupid thing.

[Star Dad]

Uggh. Yeah, my condolences. I hate that terrible feeling one gets when data has gone missing. It happened to me just recently when making a backup of a laptop. It took hours and hours. Way too long. And nothing seemed to be happening... so I looked at the back up directory and everything appeared to be there (according to "ls"). I was using a newly upgraded full edition of Ubuntu and it was too slow on this old laptop so I loaded a new, slimmer version of Ubuntu. Went to put the backed up data back on the laptop and voila - nothing - just the file/directory names. I lost everything. I had not noticed the file sizes (should have used an "ls -l") were 0 bytes. Thankfully, I am no longer a business person, so the data lost doesn't matter, except for my own website, which I downloaded all the data from it immediately. I still don't know why the full version of Ubuntu was acting so flakey. But I really like this Q4OS. Runs really well on an old Dell inspiron laptop.