SOLVED Files moved to USB drive disappeared

[Bald Brick]

The drive is a single partition FAT32. I know that seems like a waste of space, but until I can run everything via PCLOS, I have to play nice with Windblow$.
There were dozens of video files ranging in size from 50Mb to 500Mb.

I asked because the maximum file size on a FAT32 partition is 4GB. But if your largest files were only 500MB it's not likely that the filesystem mattered.

Did you do what JohnBoy suggested?

[zmud]

What I propose now is to let Photorec go on to a different drive, get a good nights sleep while it does, and check back in seven hrs to mark this post solved.
Thanks again to all. You guys are dead-set Legends!
By the by, does anyone know where the mount point directory is located?

[menotu]

By the by, does anyone know where the mount point directory is located?

Should be

/mnt

[Bald Brick]

By the by, does anyone know where the mount point directory is located?

Should be

/mnt

It depends on how a partition is mounted. If it's mounted by HAL (e.g. automatically when clicking the partition in Dolphin) it would be a subdirectory of /media. If it's mounted at boot it will be mounted wherever its line in the file /etc/fstab specifies -- i.e. wherever you've told the system to mount it. (Subdirectories of /mnt would be good places for temporary mounts.)

Note that a mountpoint is just a directory. Normally it would be empty until you mount a partition on it. If it isn't empty its contents will become unaccessible when the partition is mounted -- hidden behind whatever is on the mounted partition.

JohnBoy's theory was that you just might have moved your files to a directory where your USB drive (or actually partition) would normally be mounted. But if it wasn't mounted when you moved the files, the files would seem to disappear immediately when it actually was mounted. They would still be on your hard drive though, and reappear if you unmount the USB partition.

[zmud]

In the end I didn't find the missing files. I took the advice of these good people and installed Photorec via synaptic, ran it from a terminal (it took hrs!) and recovered the files. We didn't find the reason why the files disappeared, altho we managed to get them back. Thanks heaps peeps. 

[longtom]

- What are you doing on that computer for hours on end

- Oh ...  nothing?  Why?

- Why is you shirt wet through and through?

- Is that ceiling leaking again...

- But it's not raining?

- Must be the geyser - I call a plumber....


This can be a long story....