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[MrHaugen]

A few days ago I imported all my DVD and HD movies on my HTPC client. This are located in a directory called "DVDs" at a file server on a 1.8 TB Raid 5 array.
In an attempt to rename it to "DVD and HD" I managed to write only "DVD " before I hit a key that was not allowed. Notice the spacing at the end of the directory name.
I was not able to access this directory at once. I had to brows the network and server again. This time there was one Directory called "DVD" and one called "DVD ".
None of this contained the data. At least it looked like that..

In panic I accessed the console on my server, just to see that there was no data in the directories. But the amount of data on the disk was not reduced.
The folder "DVD" contained 0 data and the "DVD " folder was filled with 400 GB worth of nothing.
I tried to play the movies in MC, and to my big surprise it worked! The image mounted and the DVD played.
Belive the directory path at that time was "\\servername\dvd \dvd_title"

As a last atempt to make things right I renamed the folder again to the original name: DVDs.
It did not work, and my images and HD content is nowhere to be found now.

It's hard to belive that MC allows to rename directories with spaces at the end. I'm pretty sure this is the cause of the problem.
Any idea what to do to get this back??

[JimH]

Did you try going to the CMD prompt to look at the names?

[MrHaugen]

Windows command promt does not accept "dir d:\dvd " as there is a space at the ending. It only shows the DVD folder without the spacing.
I tried cd "dvd " and cd 'dvd ' as well. Nothing worked.
Thought of making a directory in the "dvd " folder, and then try to list the content in the full path, but I'm very afraid as to screw things up in the folder if I add anything.

[rpalmer68]

It's a long shot, but you can use the ALT key and the numpad to enter extended characters. <ALT>255 is a space.

Try 'cd\DVD<ALT>255' from the command prompt to see if you can get in there.

Probably won't help, but it's worth a shot!

Richard

[leezer3]

You need a Linux livecd here
The Ubuntu disk from here will do as well as any-
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

Boot from that and rename the directory without Windows & it's reserved characters interfering.
Should be relatively self-evident, but post if you get stuck.

Cheers

-Leezer-

[MrHaugen]

It's a long shot, but you can use the ALT key and the numpad to enter extended characters. <ALT>255 is a space.

If my problem was to type the actual space "character", that would be a great idea. Unfortunately it was not. It just gave me a normal space.

You need a Linux livecd here
The Ubuntu disk from here will do as well as any-
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

I was thinking the same thing, but I stopped rather fast when I was thinking about the software raid 5 setup, the drivers for the motherboard needed, NTFS Dynamig large disk format as well as the fact that my disk is encrypted with TrueCrypt.


Anyway... I managed to recover about 80% of my movies. Do not know exactly the steps I took, but after alot of moving within MC I managed to copy the files from the "DVD " folder back to my DVDs folder.
Find and Replace was what I was using. The problem with the rest of the movies is that they was in an aditional folder with the name DVDs as well. So the path got screwed up two times.
With some more moving I guess I'd be able to bring them back as well.

A little alarming that MC can rename folders to not-accepted-characters from Windows' perspective. But who knows, it might be usefull for some.
I'll surely be more carefull next time.

[JimH]

Have you tried google on DOS/Windows directory names?

And, if you have a file server that runs Linux, there are old bugs in Samba that are still around.

[John Gateley]

This is a long shot, but try opening a CMD window, change to the parent directory and type:
ren<space><tab>
It should bring up "DVD" as the name, then type <tab> again, and it might bring up the
"DVD " name. Each <tab> brings the next file in the directory up. If you can get the right
name this way, just type <space>newname and it'll rename it.

j

[MrHaugen]

I run a windows 2008 server, and yes I tried to google it. Was not much help there. I guess most people don't have this trouble as most programs use explorer, and most things will therefor not allow to save directoried with spacing at the end, or beginning...

Tried to tab my way through the directories as well, and as I suspected it found "DVD ". Then I tried to change directory but I got thrown into the "DVD" folder instead. When I tired to rename the directory to something else rename command told me that it could not find the path spesified.
So it pretty obvious that Windows is not prepared to handle directories with non supported characters, in any way.

Anyway... Now I can't even find those 60 GB in my library. Probably moved it to hell and back enough times before they got sick of it and chose to stay there. I think I'll just leave it at that, and cut my losses. Probably not much I'll miss anyway.


Thanks for trying guys!

[leezer3]

Last ditch shot, have you tried the finding & using the short MS-DOS 8.3 path? (dir *.* /X from command prompt)

Cheers

-Leezer-