D'oh! Dragged HD to trash! What do I do! HELP!

[majordude]

Doop!

I dragged an external drive to the trash thinking that it would unmount. Instead, it put all the files into the trash!



I didn't realize it until I went to empty trash and it said that it was preparing 14,000 files or so for permanent disposal.



I pressed "X" and stopped it in time (I think).

I unmounted the drive properly and the files were still in the trash. I remounted the drive and they still appear to be on the HD.

I'm thinking that I'm not totally screwed just yet. Yes, no?

What do I do? I need to clear the trash or something. I don't want to plug the dive in again and have it delete everything!

HELP!

 

[livingfortoday]

Drag them out of the trash again?

 

[ezekielrage_99]

I thought dragging an external hard disk into the trash would cause it to disconnect? I could be wrong.

 

[AlBDamned]

If it was just "preparing" and not actually deleting (it would take quite a while to prepare all the files included there), then I think you'll be ok.

 

[majordude]

Strange.

I plugged in another drive (empty) and all the files in the trash were gone!

I'm puzzled.

I copied a file to the external dive (so that there is only one file)... dragged it to trash and it unmounted (like it should).

My GUESS is that there were so many files on the first drive that it didn't just unmount, it caches something and then would have realized it was an external after all.

Either way, I think everything is okay. That was better than a Red Bull though!

 

[mongushu]

just to clarify for you.....

First off, i think you're fine. You should still have all those files on your external HD.


When you take any file from an external drive and drag it to the trash, that files is still on your external drive. If you eject/unmount the drive before emptying your trash, then the next time you plug in that external HD, the file you dragged into the trash last time, will show up in your trash.... regardless of how many times you've emptied the trash since unmounting your hardrive. If you were to empty the trash with a file from external HD "A" while external HD "A" was still mounted, THEN you would lose that file.

 

[mattscott306]

I thought dragging an external hard disk into the trash would cause it to disconnect? I could be wrong.

Me too... I think the only way that draggin them all into the trash would be possible is to open up the hd and select all then drag to the trash. If you drag the icon it should un-mount...

 

[whooleytoo]

The way I see it, dragging floppies/CDs/external hard drives to the trash to eject them was always a poor (i.e. confusing) metaphor; one of the few things the old Finder developers got wrong.

 

[rogersmj]

The way I see it, dragging floppies/CDs/external hard drives to the trash to eject them was always a poor (i.e. confusing) metaphor; one of the few things the old Finder developers got wrong.

"One of the few things"? How about no Cut action? How about massively long hangs when it can't talk to a network share? How about no Up button? How about no path display?

I love OS X but Finder is pretty abysmal. It's the one thing I use on a daily basis that feels really clunky.

 

[whooleytoo]

"One of the few things"? How about no Cut action? How about massively long hangs when it can't talk to a network share? How about no Up button? How about no path display?

I love OS X but Finder is pretty abysmal. It's the one thing I use on a daily basis that feels really clunky.

I did say the "old Finder", as in (very) pre-OSX.

If you consider the UIs on most other computers at the time, and the limited time and resources the original Finder team had at their disposal, I think the Finder was an amazing feat of engineering.

 

[floam]

.

 

[daveL]

How about no Up button? How about no path display?

Under "View", go to "Customize Toolbar" and select the "Path" tool. Clicking it shows the path to the current folder and allows you to jump to any directory in the path. You can use your "<" button to return to your current location.

 

[Jasonbot]

Just about finder niggles... I can never see PC's in my network browser while mac's appear in the blink of an "i" I can always connect to PC's via cmd-k smb://192.... but thats also very clunky. Indeed finder needs to be fixed! Let hope leopard does it for us!

 

[haiggy]

The files in the trash when your disk is connected are associated with that disk. It's odd, but it's the way finder worked before and still works. It used to be the same for floppies. It's as if the two disks have separate trash cans. If you don't empty the trash and eject the disk, the files will be gone. If you plug it back in, they re-appear and are not deleted. Kind of confusing and I think I did a poor job of explaining it.. but does that help at all?

Since it said preparing to delete... and there were 14,000 files... since you clicked the x button before they were actually being deleted you should be perfectly fine. I don't understand why it put all of your files in the trash though. Odd.

 

[daveL]

It's as if the two disks have separate trash cans.

Actually, they *do* have separate trash cans. Each r/w disk volume OS X creates has a .Trashes directory. When the disk volume is mounted, any trashed files for that volume are put in its .Trashes directory and deleted when the global trash can is emptied. As someone said earlier, if the volume is unmounted before the global trash can is emptied, the any trashed files for that volume will still be there when the volume is mounted again.

 

[majordude]

Since it said preparing to delete... and there were 14,000 files... since you clicked the x button before they were actually being deleted you should be perfectly fine. I don't understand why it put all of your files in the trash though. Odd.

I have no idea why it did what it did but luckily I caught it before it ate everything. Looks like it didn't delete a single file but it did get my heart going double-time for a minute!

 

[cowm007]

"One of the few things"? How about no Cut action?...

I used to hate that too, but I found an app that lets you add a cut function to the finder. Look for "Mac Pilot".

I also found out the other day why they don't have "cut" for files. The reasoning is that there is ambigous behavior when a file is cut and not pasted before the next cut action. Technically it should get lost, but no one really wants that to happen. So it's a bad metaphor for the behavior. A cool "Exposé" "move" function would be much more effective I think.