Today, I deleted a load of junk that was messing up my mother's computer. I don't know how I'm going to tell her I accidentally wiped out all of her wedding photos. FML
Collection
Fall
Dead leaves, the first cold of the season and an umbrella flipped inside out: fall, the season of grace.
Today, my computer stopped working. Me, the technology challenged one, decided to do a system recovery on it hoping that I could make it better. Turns out, system recovery means deleting all the files off the computer including family photos, music and assignments and starting fresh. FML
Today, my husband accidentally erased some pictures from our hard drive. No worries, nothing major: just everything from our wedding and the birth of our first child. FML
Today, I lost two terabytes' worth of photos to a friend's incompetence. He said he could save me some money and fix my slow computer for free. He ended up wiping the hard drive, and along with it, my photography portfolio from the last five years. FML
Today, I was trying to show my mother how much detail I'd put into a group project that I had to present tomorrow. I then deleted the project, thinking that I was just removing it from my phone. Everyone's research and my three days of hard work went with it. FML
Today, my parents got me a new computer for my birthday. They also took the liberty of throwing out my old computer, with 8 years of photos, videos, music, documents, emails, and bookmarks on it. But that's okay, I had a backup. They threw that out too. FML
Today, while trying to fix a corrupted USB hard drive with my wife’s computer I accidentally wiped her laptop drive instead of clearing the external drive. I’m not allowed on her computers anymore. FML
Today, I got a new computer because my old one crashed, deleting all music, photos, and documents. I still had all my music on my iPod though, and went to sync it to the new computer. By accident, my younger brother pulled the cord out before it was done, deleting all 3,000 songs forever. FML
Today, my external hard drive broke. My husband tried to fix it, and the computer told him he needed to format it. Apparently he didn't know what formatting does, so he did it. I'm a wedding photographer and had a full summer of unfinished wedding photography on there. FML
Today, I let my mother use my computer for school work. Later that day my mom asks me what's wrong with the computer. I look at it, only seeing a "Welcome to Windows XP" screen. She said that she saw a blue screen and pressed L and C when it asked her to. My mom managed to clear my hard drive. FML
Today, I accidentally deleted my landlord's pictures of his child's graduation, girlfriend, daughter, and vacation when he asked me to delete a video off his phone. FML
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Top comments
billyboef 10
I sure hope she has some kind of backup...
Migole 36
1. Perhaps you and your mother both should learn about the magic thing that is backup (external hdd, cloud whatever) 2. I hope you didn't touch the computer after you realized this and immedediately talked to a professional, because as long as you didn't overwrite the "free storage" they might still be saved
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Comments (105)
billyboef 10
I sure hope she has some kind of backup...
orbit 22
Maybe the photographer has back ups?
quickit 24
Oh shoot! I'd feel terrible if she didn't have a backup.
1dvs_bstd 41
Seriously people? There are loads of softwares out there that can recover deleted files. I suggest OP uses one before his momma boards the crazy freakout train.
ToastedSyrup 16
Hold up. Programs like that are useless unless they are either able to collect a backup upon starting the computer, or given a manual one to search through that contains the photos. They also use and obscene amount of space to save ~5 backups at any time. I hate to bring up people's mom's but considering OP's mum couldn't get rid of her junk, it's highly unlikely that she would have been computer savvy (hopefully not offensive, sorry OP's mum) enough to create backups on either of these.
ToastedSyrup 16
(Assuming she deleted the files correctly and completely. And yes people, it is possible, just very difficult.)
Arwen_Evenstar 37
Files are potentially recoverable until they've been written over, and partially until many times. If it's done quickly before those areas are written over is the best chance. I suggest a professional, if you can accidentally delete wedding photos, you're probably not to be trusted to recover them. Worth the money to try. Sadly, real live doesn't work like CSI though. :(
UO88 10
If she has Windows 7 she can use System restore to get them back. All you need to do is right click on the folder that contained the files, (or any folder above that), and select properties, then the previous versions tab. open a date that the files were there and click and drag them back. Older Windows versions can do this with Shadow Explorer. Not sure about W8 though. PV was removed in 8.
wallamanut 14
I'd say not only does OP, but OP's family, deserves it for not even having thought of burning the photos into a CD or onto a flash driver if they were that important.
lukian_fml 29
Undelete software, go!
brivielle 15
I'd pick Windows 7 over 8 anytime. OP, never ever decongest a computer that's not yours. It never has a happy ending.
Classy_Sassy_15 15
Just tell her what you did and maybe it helped her computer work properly again
foxwasalamb 24
if my kid did that, "at least your computer works again" ain't gonna cut it.
cypherwars 15
that kinda stuff is usually recoverable. it just takes a bit of patience.
Migole 36
1. Perhaps you and your mother both should learn about the magic thing that is backup (external hdd, cloud whatever) 2. I hope you didn't touch the computer after you realized this and immedediately talked to a professional, because as long as you didn't overwrite the "free storage" they might still be saved
Mauskau 36
You don't need a professional, there is a program called Recuva that I have used, and several years ago I used another recovery program which allowed me to recover 200gb of data from a drive I had formatted as it had corrupted itself.
Arwen_Evenstar 37
She managed to "accidentally" delete the photos, she probably shouldn't be messing around with software.
Earl_KarmasBitch 36
I too recommend Recuva. It requires no professional training to use.
Fuaaad1994 31
Could always restore the computer to a time where the pictures have been saved. If not then there are always software that can bring back deleted items
Mauskau 36
System restore only restores programs that are newly installed or uninstalled, it doesn't touch files such as media or documents.
Compgeek1996 5
System Restore can recover deleted files, but only if there's a restore point for them. that's why creating backups and restore points is important. If there were never any restore points created, the computer would have to be reset to whenever the last major system change was made as that's usually when Windows makes them automatically.
CarlosDanger 12
You don't know what you are talking about.
mattyiscool123 26
Yes it does It puts it back to an earlier day
UnidentifiedFun 37
I hope iCloud can come into play here.. However, if worst comes to worst, she mustn't be the only person with photos of her wedding.
confusedAsFuck 34
I can't understand how you would accidentally consider you mother's wedding photos junk.. unless you were deleting folders without checking what's inside them, in that case YFDI
YourProblemsSuck 2
Or OP just made a mistake. Some laptops have really sensitive mouses and will click things without you meaning to.
vipirius 18
Yeah except windows asks like 5 times if you're sure you want to delete them. One misclick isn't gonna cut it here.
mattrd_fml 31
This doesn't warrant a ydi. If anyone deserves it the mom does for not backing up her files.
YJD68_fml 13
What is OP ?
SystemofaBlink41 27
Obtuse Penis
es3508 16
It looks like it's time for you to pack your bags
kimg0885 23
The way you say that they are " your mothers photos " makes it sound like the man your mother married was not your father.... So maybe you hate your stepdad??
SMHsohard 22
You could be reading too much into this...sometimes a fuckup is just a fuckup.
brivielle 15
#9. I know it's really too plain to b real but..they are OP's mother's photos. Like her personal copies. Believe it.
patrickeli 15
... Yikes. Hope she asked you to clean up her computer, otherwise it would look way worse if you took the liberty to do it on impulse and have screwed it up.
DedicatedNova 13
Just take it to a tech specialists and get it recovered.