Help!! I have managed to delete the entire folder contents from a shared 'o' drive at work. ?

Question

How do I restore it? System is Windows XP. I was moving something to it last night and this is all that is in it now, I need to restore the other sub folders. HELP!!! I would really appreciate it if you could help me to do it myself as opposed to ringing IT and telling my boss!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

If your IT department have been foolish enough to give you modify access to a shared network drive, then they deserve a kick up the ***. The sooner you tell them the better, and hope they backed up the files recently, like before people did a full days work before you deleted it. There is something called shadow copy, right click the folder and choose restore previous copies. In any case, contact the IT department and ask them to reduce your privileges so you don't have administrator access.

btw - a lot of the other answerers have given you all kinds of s*** to do with system restore /recycle bin etc. System resore is only used for restoring Windows system files hence the name "SYSTEM restore" second, the recycle bin only works with files on your hard drive, not a network drive.

Answer 2

First off, 'lost' files are generally moved, rather than deleted - it's far easier to accidentally drag stuff into a strange place than it is to accidentally delete it.  You could try letting the network client you were using when you mislaid the files search all available drives for one of the lost files, if you know what any of them are called.

Second; if the system's set up so an end user can wreak that sort of havoc, it'll be IT for the chop, not you. It's their job to ensure this kind of thing does not happen.

EDIT: for maria - just for the record - if you drag a folder over another folder, the folder you are dragging goes *inside* the folder you drag it onto. If you drag it over a file, nothing really happens - the folder simply appears in the location you dragged it to, and the file remains in the same place.

Answer 3

You can restore anything you delete so thats the good news.

Answer 4

you need to go onto start then all programs, accessories the system tools. then go onto system restore and go bk to the date u deleted them. :D:D  

Answer 5

Ring the IT department, they should be able to restore those files.

Don't listen to anyone talking about using system restore, that's inappropriate here.

Answer 6

ask IT its only them who can help mate!

Answer 7

Are you sure it has gone? Have you looked inside the folder you put on there? If you move a folder to somewhere and put it on top the other files/folders they can be automatically transferred to that folder. If they are in there just drag and drop them back into place

EDIT: above, yeah just realised i misunderstood the question, i thought they meant they had moved in the sub folders to the drive after they had created the folder.  

Still cant see how the sub folders could have just disappeared, but if they have then they cant be restored at your end, a network administrator will have to restore them from back-up. The only way i know of at users end is If shadow copies of shared folders for users is enabled on both the drive and pcs.

Answer 8

If it's a network drive (and it sounds like it is), you'll have to get the IT department to restore it from the archive.

You have to hope they do daily backups.

Answer 9

That sucks!

Have you checked the Recycle Bin?  If you're lucky, it's all sitting in there safe & sound, and you can just restore the items to the shared drive.

In the Recycle Bin:

-Select items you want to restore

-Click on "Restore the selected items" in left sidebar <next to green arrow>

Check the O:\ drive and they should be where the were before being deleted.

Usually if you select items and click 'Delete', they will be sent to the Recycle Bin (Yay! Easy to solve).  If you click 'Shift' + 'Delete', they are more permanently deleted, but there are services that can restore data from (Boo! Expensive and you have to tell the boss).

I'm praying for you that they're sitting in the Recycle Bin!

GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 10

contact your IT department... thats their job.

i think we've all done something like that at one time or another - even my boss has!