Picasa deleted my photos...restore programs suggestion?

[mike2rc]

I downloaded the Picasa software so I could start posting photos on the internet. After installation it proceeded to import every photo on my PC. I tried to stop it by going to tools, options, manage folders, etc. with no luck.

I then uninstalled Picasa which already showed ‘many’ of my folders. After I rebooted I noticed it also deleted many of my photos and some music from my PC ‘completely’…I have no idea why Picasa would do this. I also did a system restore with luck. I imagine many people have lost their photos/files using Picasa.

I have most of my best photos backed up on a Seagate external drive. However, I would like to recover ‘on my own’ a number of recent photos. I have RescuePro for SD cards and I would like to know if there’s a recovery program I can buy to retrieve the photos? It’s not worth paying someone to recover the photos as I only lost a few good photos.

Also, my external is not connected. If it ‘was’ connected, would Picasa have imported files from my external and deleted them off the external as well?

Any restore program suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

[Train]

Recovery programs

PC Inspector

Restoration

TestDisk

Recuva

Recuva seems to be highly recommended.

[Train]

Yes, Picasa would have grab that stuff too.

But anything that is overwritten will be lost even with those programs.

[mike2rc]

Thanks, I'll try Recuva.

I went to my local Best Buy and the GS rep seemed to think think Picasa would have searched my external if it was connected and quite possibly deleted data off the external as well.

Is it best to keep the external disconnected and copy important files over manually? From what I recall, you can keep the external connected and have a scheduled back up yet I would think virues would search for an external as well.

Thanks for the info!
Mike

[Train]

My externals are only plugged in when I manually update them.

After you recover what you can, only then copy back what you want.

[mike2rc]

Thanks, a deep scan could very important flies if I need them. I still can't believe Picasa deleted all those files and how they stay in business is beyond me.

[Train]

Check out windows live / Hotmail sky drive

Windows Live SkyDrive offers 25GB of free online storage. You can use SkyDrive storage to back up your files online for free, or to share large files with others.

Then send a link to share them once you have the permissions set the way you want them. I use it myself.

[mike2rc]

Thanks, I'll try that.

[HAN]

This is bizarre! I have tinkered with Picasa for quite some time and it should not have moved or deleted any photos. It "catalogs" them as to location and so forth but it has never moved any photos in any way for me or anyone I have helped with it. I found this post on the Picasa forum and the answer given follows my experiences with it http://www.google.com/support/forum/...c895903c&hl=en
I have no idea what happened but I feel bad for you.

The best free photo recovery program I know of is PhotoRec. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec It's a bootable CD that grabs things at a very low level. There is a lot of info on the page (how to make the CD, how to use it, etc.)

Good Luck!

[mike2rc]

I onl lost a few good photos. It did delete my docs and music files which I had on an external and Outlook data came back.

It was a hassle moving files back over to my H/D. Now I have a My Photos file within MY Photos as well. I 'think' I deleted the my photos file from within the main my photos and all my photos were then deleted. I think the answer is to delete my photo files all together and transfer them back over to one main photo file. Why Picas imported all those non-photos files (even iVidia) is mysterious to me.

I have a photo club meeting Thursday night and they went over Picasa briefly one night. There are a couple of experts with the photo software who may have an answer. Thankfully, nothing happened to my system like video, glitches, etc.

I'll check out that link & post back any info. I may get Thurs. night.

Mike

[fink]

Be patient if you use Photorec... I've used it and it's very good but can take quite a long time to finish scanning a drive.