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Help MY FILES UTTERLY VANISHED.

A

Anon1235

Newbie
I'm so confused. Here is everything I did leading up to the vanishing of my internal storage:

1. Connect LG G3 to Windows Laptop, guest account.
2. Copy a file from my phone's internal storage to the Desktop on the guest account.
3. Go into panic mode when I realize my files have vanished.

When I restarted my phone, this message was on the bottom of my screen:

Home: [email address]: disconnected.

This message popped up five times, each time listing a different email address associated with an account on the PC. None of these accounts were ever associated with my phone before, so I don't understand why they would show up.

My important photos, videos, notes, books, documents, etc....GONE. Disappeared. Only my apps and app data are still there.

I'm feeling homicidal at the moment, and I need to at least understand WHY this happened. I've copied files from my android to my PC many times, but never on the guest account until this incident. What the **** happened?
 
Hello!
I'm not real familiar with the Guest Mode on the LG G3 (even though I have that device :) ), but what happens when you (or can you) exit the guest mode?
Perhaps whilst in guest mode, your files are not visible? (making it appear that they are gone)
 
Mikestony said:
Hello!
I'm not real familiar with the Guest Mode on the LG G3 (even though I have that device :) ), but what happens when you (or can you) exit the guest mode?
Perhaps whilst in guest mode, your files are not visible? (making it appear that they are gone)
Click to expand...

Sorry, I meant the guest account on the PC, not on my phone.

When I checked my storage, it shows that 11GB of space is available (I used to have 3GB available, before everything vanished), so it looks like the files are in fact deleted, not hidden.
 
AMOCO said:
I think they vanished because the guess mode on a pc can be setup as limited access.This means no downloads and/or file transfers either.
Click to expand...

The file was copied successfully. I just don't understand why my other files were affected.

I also don't understand the Home: [email address]: disconnected message I got.
 
Even though it says they were copied,They in fact were deleted right away.
Get with the Admin of the pc and ask them to give you more access to the computer.
If they won't then you are out of luck.
 
AMOCO said:
Even though it says they were copied,They in fact were deleted right away.
Get with the Admin of the pc and ask them to give you more access to the computer.
If they won't then you are out of luck.
Click to expand...

I am an admin of the PC. I was trying to make a file available to all of the users of my PC, without having to log in to my account.

What would using greater access do? Is there actually a way I can recover my files?

Also, WHY did simply copying from G3 to PC cause my G3 files to be deleted?
 
If your Admin,Log in under primary account and give the other account full Admin privileges.
And make sure all usb drivers are installed,Then you should be able to copy and paste under the guest user account.
 
AMOCO said:
If your Admin,Log in under primary account and give the other account full Admin privileges.
And make sure all usb drivers are installed,Then you should be able to copy and paste under the guest user account.
Click to expand...

Thanks. But what about my deleted files?

Thousands of important files, gone forever? Tell me now if I have hope, or if I can cut straight to destroying my phone, computer, and other belongings, in addition to murdering every living thing that crosses my path.
 
Last edited:
Yes,Sorry.
This is why its a good ideal to copy & paste first to verify everything was moved and is visable.Then you can delete the files you copied from.
 
AMOCO said:
Yes,Sorry.
This is why its a good ideal to copy & paste first to verify everything was moved and is visable.Then you can delete the files you copied from.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, I only copied and pasted one file, but I never manually deleted anything. All files on my internal storage deleted themselves. That's what I don't understand. I didn't click into any of the files that ended up being deleted. I didn't mess with ANY OTHER FILES except the one I copied, yet all of my files ended up gone. WHY?!
 
When dealing with an EXTERNAL device.

Never, ever, but never, MOVE A FILE.

You are putting your entire life in the hands of two OS's competing with each other for control.
If something happens, both file structures will disappear.

I ALWAYS do a Copy/Paste from one device to the other.
Then, once the target device is verified, I backup the folder to a 2nd hard drive.

then, I go to the source (your phone) and delete files willy nilly as I see fit.

I only made that mistake once with a cellphone, and only once with a computer...

both times, all of the files were lost. It won't happen to me on my shift, ever again.

sorry for your loss.... but, IF you are an admin of the primary account, heed the advice given, give that Guest account full privileges and maybe you can then go back and retrieve something that was lost.

Forensic data recovery is horrendously expensive, and usually wasted money..... the continual use of the devices will over write the File structure, and the existing data if enough new data is written to fully over write the old data.

I am going to suggest, that you forget there is such a thing as a USB cable to connect to your PC. Forget they even exist.

Use WiFi to do the file transfers.... the phone will never, ever, loose anything.
and, the transfer is many times faster than even 3.0 USB

* File Manager ASUS - Android Apps on Google Play
 
I really don't know what happened but just throwing an idea out here, it may sound far-fetched, but do you think the files are somehow hidden?
@AZgl1500 , I think the OP did copy, not just move the file.
 
AZgl1500 said:
sorry for your loss.... but, IF you are an admin of the primary account, heed the advice given, give that Guest account full privileges and maybe you can then go back and retrieve something that was lost.
Click to expand...

I just gave the guest account admin privileges. Now what would be the steps to retrieving what was lost?
 
Now that is weird.
Try unplugging data cable & restart phone.
Then plug data cable back into pc and phone.And try to copy & paste.
 
I am truly sorry if your files are lost. I would suggest that with the usb disconnected try rebooting the phone to be certain you are getting a true report of your storage... or use the phone's local browser to search the folder where the files were.
 
I tried disconnecting, restarting, and reconnecting. Nothing.

The thing I'm especially curious about is that message I'm getting on my phone:

Home: [email address]: disconnected.

I THOUGHT it was reporting addresses that were associated with the PC...but I just saw my brother's name pop up. He has no association with the PC whatsoever. Never even used it. Weird.

Next time it happens, I'll get a screen shot so you can see it. Clearly something happened. I only started getting those messages today, after my files vanished.
 
What PC OS you on?
EDIT: If your on Windows 7,8,8.1, or 10,Open say Documents and at the top of the page click on View and put a check in the Hidden Items box.Then see if you can see your files now.
 
Last edited:
AMOCO said:
What PC OS you on?
EDIT: If your on Windows 7,8,8.1, or 10,Open say Documents and at the top of the page click on View and put a check in the Hidden Items box.Then see if you can see your files now.
Click to expand...

Tried it. Didn't work unfortunately.
 
Anon1235 said:
Tried it. Didn't work unfortunately.
Click to expand...
Okay,Were not done just yet.
Open say Documents again,Click on View and go to options,Click on Change folder and Search Options.
Click on View in the popup window and uncheck Always show icons,Never thumbnails.
And change Hidden files and folders to Show hidden files,folders,and drives.
Then restart computer.
And try again to see files and folders.
 
This just happened on my F60 a few days ago. It had been acting weird for a while now (memory leak is suspected), but the other day after a restart I found that all the apps that were in the SD card were deleted. Hooked it it up to my PC to find the SD card had effectively been wiped. only thing that survived were a few mp3's in the root folder.

Unless you want to go through the trouble of trying to salvage your lost data, sounds like its a lost cause.
 
Last edited:
AMOCO said:
Okay,Were not done just yet.
Open say Documents again,Click on View and go to options,Click on Change folder and Search Options.
Click on View in the popup window and uncheck Always show icons,Never thumbnails.
And change Hidden files and folders to Show hidden files,folders,and drives.
Then restart computer.
And try again to see files and folders.
Click to expand...

Tried it. Didn't work :(:(
 
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