WARNING! Program that DELETED MY VIDEO LIBRARY!

Hello all,

I'm posting to warn everyone about the HD Trailers.NET Downloader (available here: http://hdtrailersdler.codeplex.com/)

I downloaded it, seeing it as an easy way to grab trailers for all my movies.

However, as soon as I opened the program, a black window came up and started scrolling. I realised after a couple of seconds that what it was doing was deleting all of the files in the Videos folder. Result: All but 300 movies gone, only a couple of .avi files left (I promptly closed the window) and over 20 deleted TV Shows, not to mention stacks of music videos and podcasts gone forever. I had not backed up the folder as I didn't see the harm in the program but it taught me an important lesson: don't trust any programs, even those with authentic-looking discussion boards full of "happy customers".

If anyone has any idea how I might get my files back if this is at all possible, please reply as I would love to know (already checked Trash)

Hope this stops anything like this happening to others,

Maximoo

Thanks for the warning and sorry to hear you lost most of your media collection. You could try some undelete tools (google for them) that scan the discs surface for files that got deleted from the TOC - those should be able to recover most I think. Important in this case is, that you don't write anything new on the HDD now so that you don't overwrite deleted files. If the files where on a NAS/raid5 then chances are not that good I think - but I'm no expert on raids.

This software is open source and works well

The only way to have stuff deleted is misusing it, there's option to delete files older than x days in the downloaded trailer directory but you should not set the same dir as your movies when you try a prog without read all, the option is disabled by default and by default it's also set to delete to recycle bin in case you activate the option.

I don't think the author can do more to prevent this kind of misuse.

Sorry for the loss but always read the docs before click is always best

it is not a plugin...

(2012-05-08 13:06)Tolriq Wrote:  This software is open source and works well

The only way to have stuff deleted is misusing it, there's option to delete files older than x days in the downloaded trailer directory but you should not set the same dir as your movies when you try a prog without read all, the option is disabled by default and by default it's also set to delete to recycle bin in case you activate the option.

I don't think the author can do more to prevent this kind of misuse.

Sorry for the loss but always read the docs before click is always best

+1

This was me using it out-of-the-box, not having changed any settings at all. When I installed it, it came up immediately in the Windows menu so I didn't think to go into the folder in case there was a Read Me.

It's not normal that on your first time using it, with regular settings, it can wipe you entire library.

I realise now that it's not malicious in any way and I appreciate such a program being developped but I don't think such things should happen or be allowed to happen.

maybe i am lost but how would it be pointing to you media

and a lot of us need it to work that way
i and others use it to download trailers to use with Cinema Experience....since i don't want to have 5000 trailers it keeps my trailer directory to a manageable size and keeps my trailers new and recent

There are always ways to get your data back from a hard drive, there should be some basic recovery software out there that may get it back, if not some more in-depth software will certainly be able to recover, unfortunately i don't know what programs off the top of my head.

But don't lose hope

Thanks to Da-anda and tim.dooley for their helpful advice.

I know now that I should have been more careful and made sure to check for a settings file. I just want to make people aware what could happen if you use this application out of the box.

Maximoo

Just came across this thread. Sorry you lost files. What you experienced certainly wasn't by design. I am going to check out what could have happened and fix it if possible. Next time drop a message in the HD-Trailers.net Downloader forum. I monitor that continuously. Although I am on the XBMC forums at least daily I don't look for HD-Trailer.Net Downloader messages here.

It probably doesn't help you now. but there are tools to undelete files that are accidentally deleted. You just can't use the hard drive until you have undeleted the files.

Again my apologizes.

Take Care