Still A Mac Novice
January 13th, 2009 by JillI made a huge novice mistake yesterday using the Mac OS and as a result lost about 200 gigabytes of captured video footage. Some had already been edited, some was waiting to be edited, some I don’t have the tapes anymore, some I do, and some I have the tapes but no longer the analog-to-digital converter I used. I was nearly in tears at the realization, but helpless nonetheless.
This came a little too late!
After all I’ve heard and experienced about the user-friendliness of the Mac OS, I never imagined my Mac would allow me to do such a thing! I was trying to copy files from one external hard drive to another, separating my work files from my personal ones. I had trouble with a few that were Fat32 file size limitation issues, so I decided mid-way through the process I should re-format the school drive so I could get those files onto it. In the process of moving what I had already copied BACK to my own drive, I moved a folder, chose Replace, and didn’t think twice. Little did I know, the folder/copy “Replace” action on a Mac OS is VERY different from Windows! And in an instant, it was all gone. Everything I’ve ever captured on my Mac. Gone. I tried Undo when I first noticed it, but it was already too late.
I asked my husband who has much more experience with the Mac OS, and he seemed confused at first. He, in contrast, didn’t know the Replace action was different either. Unfortunately for me, though, had I made the mistake as a Mac user switching to Windows as he would have, it would not have had this devastating result.
So, a lesson learned. For all you Windows users out there, beware — if you click Replace when copying a folder, the old folder is wiped out and truly replaced with what you copy!
Posted in Mac vs. Windows, technology | 2 Comments »