Uh oh? Secure empty trash.. but 6,700 files? Did I delete everything!?

[Sunstar22]

Hey
I am really really new to mac just got it a few days ago, and my friend used a hard drive to transfer my pictures and itunes onto my new computer, I had put the new photos into a good file but there was still another folder with all the same photos on my desktop so I put it in the trash and it was stuck with a little lock on it and when i tried and emptied the trash it said I needed to change my options, so i thought I had changed the options and I clicked secure empty trash and it started deleting 6,700 files... I think I screwed up the comptuter already... AHH please help!!

 

[gusious]

If you have the photos,music and everything else,what do you care if you have trashed a duplicate folder?

If you have one copy of your things,then you don't need to worry!

 

[eRondeau]

A little friendly advice: On a Mac, YOU don't put things into files -- you let the SOFTWARE put things into files for you. My old iBook has been working flawlessly for five years because I trust the software; I NEVER go monkeying around in the file system. Especially where irreplaceable photos and music is concerned.

To import pictures into iPhoto, just drag-and-drop them into the main window. iPhoto will do the rest. To import music into iTunes, just drag-and-drop them into the main window, iTunes will do the rest. Same with iMovie too.

I know trusting a computer is hard to do when you've been screwed by PC's all your life, but Trust Your Mac and it won't let you down.

 

[gusious]

That's right eRondeau!!You are totally right!!As you can see from my signature i don't really "play" when Unix is involved....Too dangerous.....!!

Oh and Sunstar22,even when you trust a program,always backup...!You never know what's going to happen...!

 

[jive turkey]

To answer your question, if your pictures and music are still found in the finder, you are probably ok. A few weeks after I first bought my Mac I went the "secure empty trash" route...and it said it was deleting over 200,000 files!!!!! I about freaked, but since I was new to this whole thing I figured worse case scenario was I could reinstall the OS since I only had a few weeks of customization on it everything was backed up with Time Machine. I let all 200k files be securely emptied and have never noticed anything wrong.

 

[Eidorian]

There is a good chance you might have deleted Recovered Files.

As always, backup.