Data loss

[aguerriero]

Good morning,

Someone on my team was renaming folders in the Content Explorer view of Flare 4.2. Flare was prompting to update links, which she was doing. However, after a number of folders renamed, she got the nebulous "Flare has encountered an error and must close." When she re-opened the project, everything was gone. The only thing that remains in the Content folder - no subfolders or files. The files are not in her Recycle Bin either.

Help?

I've read a couple threads where people lost topics after moving them around, but the whole project?

[Andrew]

I wish I could be more helpful here...never seen a large data loss. But two suggestions:

1) I hope you've got a recent backup -- if you are using Windows XP or better, you may want to consider using a restore point if you have a fairly recent one, assuming the project is on the local drive. If it's on the network, hopefully IT has a backup.

2) If you are using Windows 2003 or better, you might want to check out Previous Versions. Basically, go to your project folder (or your Content folder) and right-click and select Properties. You will hopefully see a Previous Versions tab. If Volume Shadow Copies is enabled, you can restore a previous version of the folder.

Hope that helps, and good luck!

[KevinDAmery]

Before getting too concerned, take a look at the project in Windows Explorer to see if the folders are there or not. Could be the project lost track of the name changes when it had the error.

[aguerriero]

I apologize - I should have been more clear. The files and folders are physically gone from the PC. They are not in the Recycle Bin, as I would expect for files that might have been erroneously deleted. Unfortunately this user was working from a local drive on a Windows XP machine and no recent backup is available.

[GregStenhouse]

I've had success before with FreeUndelete (well free for personal use anyway)
http://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/index.htm

Cheers
Greg

[aguerriero]

Assuming the data recovery won't be a problem in and of itself, does anyone have any ideas about why Flare did this?

[Ryan Cerniglia]

Assuming the data recovery won't be a problem in and of itself, does anyone have any ideas about why Flare did this?

Are you using source control software along with Flare?

[KevinDAmery]

To be honest, I'm not convinced it was Flare that caused it. It could easily be that the error she had was a symptom rather than the cause (in other words, a drive died or Windows screwed up so the files that Flare was working with were no longer there - so naturally it popped an error).

[aguerriero]

To be honest, I'm not convinced it was Flare that caused it. It could easily be that the error she had was a symptom rather than the cause (in other words, a drive died or Windows screwed up so the files that Flare was working with were no longer there - so naturally it popped an error).

That makes two of us. I was mainly interested in knowing if anyone has experienced this problem. That team will be moving to source control soon.

[Madcap Guru]

Along with Kevin, I have never seen Flare delete a file folder when it is has crashed, Flare just uses the Windows file explorer interfae for the rename and showing of the files.

[KevinDAmery]

In fact, I've seen Flare freeze when copying large numbers of files, but when you restart everything was moved properly with no broken links. I have not seen it lose track of anything, let alone nuke files and folders completely.