HUGE File Loss Problem Need Help

[mashinhead]

My sister just got a new macbook for xmas. It was working fine until yesterday when she noticed that the hd space went from 120 to 85 gb overnight. so i told her to back up her stuff and we would reinstall.

she had a folder with her school docks on the desktop. she dragged into the dock and when she did she claims that it was missing from the desktop, there was only and instance in the doc. i gave her the hd to copy her stuff not two minutes ago and the folder and sub folders were in the dock. she tried to drag and drop that into the hd to copy and it just did the poof thing it does when you remove apps from the dock

problem is when it did that the folder and its contents are now nowhere to be found on the computer. i ve searched everywhere. is there a way to recover them?

 

[MacHipster]

Have you used spotlight to see if the files are still there?

 

[panzer06]

Have you used spotlight to see if the files are still there?

Don't empty the trash or write anything else to the system. They are probably still accessible on the disk.

Do you know someone with UNIX knowledge who can help you look around under the graphical covers?

Cheers,

 

[G4DP]

THey would behave like that

Firstly, the folder would have diappeared from the desktop because, you moved the original folder and not a copy, you say you gave her a HD to copy stuff too? When you moved the folder from the dock to the HD it would have deleted the dock icon - hence the poofy effect - the only copy of that file will now be on the HD you gave her to copy stuff too.

If it isn't there then you may have a problem with the original HD.