Accidentally deleted c:/user/documents folder- p3dv4.5

[ryanairpisa2012 0]

Hi, I have been trying to clear up some space on my c drive and low and behold I copied the contents of the documents folder to my desktop and moved the original documents folder to my d drive to make some space. I went to move it back later in the evening and realised the default c/users/documents/ folder was deleted. I stioll have the contents of the folder including the p3d Add ons folder, but my p3dv4.5 is now giving a scenery config error on startup for the few sceneries that were installed using the add ons document folder method. I wonder could someone help about what I should do? Its a couple of UK2000 sceneries that are in the scenery config messsages, I have deleted them from the scenery library and was going to reinstall them, but what if there is no default p3d add ons folder in c/user/documents/ for when the installer wants to put them there? Please help, I fear I've messed something up bad. P3d still starts fine otherwise and other sceneries like flytampa EKCH and LGKR work well. Thank you. 

[mikeymike 357]

System restore 

[pgde 571]

Check your Recycle Bin....

[ryanairpisa2012 0]

Hi, I realised the deleted folder had just caused two addon airports installed in the c:/users/documents/p3dv4 Addons folder to be moved so there was an invalid line in the scenery config xml, I just reinstalled the two airports, all is fine now but the documents folder is still gone. The D:/ drive, when I right click the shortcut for it in the 'recent folders' tab in file explorer and go to the 'location' tab, then click 'restore default' it has as the default path the location where the Documents folder should be in c:/users/documents. Weird. I don't know how I managed to do that, I think I must have copied the documents folder to the root of D rather than in d:users. Anyway, it can't be moved back. Not sure what to do. And I had been clearing space, so regularly did the disk clean up, so the recycle bin is empty. 

[Tom3123 8]

Its probably too late now, but after you recreate everything, (all you have to do is recreate the folder names in your documents directory. I would recommend that you invest in a copy of Acronis True Image.  This backup software will make an image of you drive and store it on another drive.  It can be setup to make a incremental backup at almost any interval.  I made a full backup and then do incremental backups every day, this way I am only one day behind anything I have done and possibly screwed up.  Just a tip from a person who has done the exact something Okay I will admit it it more then once 🙂

 

Any good software and will save you lots of head aches going forward.

[fppilot 4,355]

54 minutes ago, Tom3123 said:

I made a full backup and then do incremental backups every day, this way I am only one day behind anything I have done and possibly screwed up. 

You can also clone your system drive to a spare then-bootable drive.  I do what Tom says with full backup and incremental's. I also separately clone each 60 days. 

[ryanairpisa2012 0]

57 minutes ago, Tom3123 said:

Its probably too late now, but after you recreate everything, (all you have to do is recreate the folder names in your documents directory. I would recommend that you invest in a copy of Acronis True Image.  This backup software will make an image of you drive and store it on another drive.  It can be setup to make a incremental backup at almost any interval.  I made a full backup and then do incremental backups every day, this way I am only one day behind anything I have done and possibly screwed up.  Just a tip from a person who has done the exact something Okay I will admit it it more then once 🙂

 

Any good software and will save you lots of head aches going forward.

Thank you so much! That is the kind of thing I needed to hear, I was never the best at sticking to backing things up until it was too late; that's great advice. I will certainly invest in that. I have sorted what went wrong, and reinstalled the add-on airports that were affected so i'll just need to rename the folder to documents' and then back up. Thanks again 🙂 

[ryanairpisa2012 0]

5 minutes ago, fppilot said:

You can also clone your system drive to a spare then-bootable drive.  I do what Tom says with full backup and incremental's. I also separately clone each 60 days. 

Great advice, thank you very much. Silly me won't be meddling again 🙂 I'll definitely look into cloning the system drive. 

[Jetman67 517]

Macrium reflect is also an excellent review,I second what time says great advice

[Dave_YVR 968]

 Also try not to let installers install full products into the Documents folder, create a specific folder of your choosing. I have a few hundred addon's in both my v4 and also v5 and the Documents folder is still under 50mb for each sim. 

[ryanairpisa2012 0]

Thank you very much guys for all your help and suggestions. Yes, I noticed the documents folder only has the small addon.xml file for each add on that uses that method of install, so I won't be moving anything again 🙂 

[jfmitch 33]

Do you need a copy?  I can put it in Dropbox for you.

[ryanairpisa2012 0]

That's very kind, yes please that would be great:) 

On 7/29/2020 at 7:29 PM, jfmitch said:

Do you need a copy?  I can put it in Dropbox for you.

 

[W2DR 1,859]

There is a very good freeware backup program available here:  https://www.aomeitech.com/ab/standard.html  . I've been a longtime Acronis fan (and still am - I use it every day) but I've also used this software and it works just as advertised. For the average home user I think it's all that's really needed..........Doug

[ryanairpisa2012 0]

Thanks a lot, I'll take a look, 

 

Chris