Well, it had to happen this century: somewhat overworked, pressed Shift-Del in the wrong directory -
the one I was planning to save to external disk after a week of incremental work, consisting of working results,
programs safely in tucked away but not keen to let it run again, as some manual steps were done in between as well.

First reaction: step away from keyboard. Go to different keyboard. Execute face2keyboard as often as neccessary.

As most of you already know, pressing shift-del does not erase permanantly on NTFS either - it just does not copy into electronic paper tray.
So the files SHOULD be possible to recover, if further damage/stupidity can be avoided. Damage was avoided, this here is intended as a way to curb stupidity in readers and enhance preparedness ;-)

No danger power down machine; lost directory being on data partition, swap disc and other OS files like hibernation and so on being still on OS partition.
Bad: no Linux installed in a tuck-away partition of the old 17' I had taken with me for screen area after latest clean. Reason had been lazyness, as I did not want to update those safeties on 5 possible working machines and DVD seems to work well enough .
Good: taken with me my survival kit with bootable DVD's, including Linux.
Bad: had shuffled in one of the later Ubuntu's without checking more than basic start capability on all working machines.
Interlude: Craig has gotten A LOT of flak here for praising at least some aspects of Win8, while others concentrate more on tiles and missing start button. I have had versions of boot-linux with me from early nineties Knoppix and later Suse and nowadays Ubuntu. Used to have no real problem, if you remember some basics like mounting readonly or write-enabled and are careful with GPartEd,blockcopy and so on. User interface of new Ubuntu is at least a big step in the wrong direction as Win8, if you have worked in Linux before! Try in depth before switching DVD's - even if having newer versions usually means better support for things like NTFS, USB3 and so on.

Linux will not mount your usual discs, so further damage will ONLY occur if you are not careful. At least Ubuntu has also "ntfsprogs", which DOES include ntfsundelete, as verified by googling. Older versions were mousable for mounting Read-Only/Writable, more steps but safer IMO. But IAC, found out ntfsundelete works on unmounted device, so no danger. Found out something else: ntfsundelete works on files only, NOT directory structures! Was not 100% certain my deleted structures had no duplicate file names. Did not find the correct syntax for list of files like "*.db?,*.fpt,*.cdx,*.csv,*.zip" so executed for each wildcarded extension. Worked flawless, copying ~340 GB of data to USB3 external in about 80min - but being uncertain about possible name collisions.

Interlude: Jumped on the motorcycle and bought another large/fast, this time 3.5 USB3 external disc (saturday afternoon...)

As this was billable stuff, being a cheapskate and risking something missing was out of the cards. So I googled for Win-tools free and not-free. Mixed results, best were "Pandora Recovery" (free installable, offer of sending USB stick with portable), "Recuva" (free, available in 32 and 64, installable as well as portable), "FileRestorePlus" and "NtfsUndelete" (payable, probably same developer). Decided to go with NtfsUndelete first.

Interlude: Getting the installable ran into minor difficulty, albeit self to blame. All my browser downloads go into Data partition,as I sometimes move laaarge files via HTTPS and browser interfaces, then move to my working dirs. Downloading to that partition a no-no currently. Did not fire up Linux again, used my pad and copied over into OS partition, installing from/to there no danger for current problem on data partition.

Reminder 2 myself: I have lately left the "Users" stuff on the OS partition, as renaming, virtual directories and similar stuff across different bootable OS versions made earlier practice of consolidating in data or separate partition a mess. Must make more certain nothing important is still pointing there. Also point at least 1 browser to downlaod into boot partition as to not disturb data partition for downloads. Even better would be discrete partition for swap, DL, hibernate etc - but hibernate becoming OS dependant makes this a no-no to consolidate across OS. Count of drive letters also limited ;-)

Buying NtfsUndelete had to take care not to be saddled with more expensive options - not a good impresion to start with. Running NtfsUndelete gave me a nice, discoverable GUI with lots of filtering options, even "getting/showing" the ***previous*** name of the directory I deleted foolishly. Found all my stuff without needing to dwell/try with deep scanning. Started to recover all my stuff to new USB3. Worked, but took somewhere about 24H (last checked at 22H!).

As I now have probably a amchine dependant bought version, I decided to test the other 2 as well. (Was something of a hurry when clicking install sermon)

First got portable Recuva, unzipped and ran. Workable GUI, but least intuitive of the 3 GUI. Found my deleted directory under different/machine allocated name. Recovering took about 140 min.

Installed Pandora (see steps above for downloading without disturbing...) and ran. GUI showing deleted dirs in a treeview, IMO better than Recuva to find relevant new names but not as elegant as NtfsUndelete. Recovering to another dir on external took slightly less than 4H.

Lessons learned:
Rethink your setup of partioning, User and thereby Documents and Settings location, Download targetting, OS / Swap / Hibernate / Programs setup for such events. Mine withstood the test but I have to be more careful of Documents and Settings now under stricter OS control.

If you have no fear of Linux, still first point to turn to. Due to concept of mounting no chance of making things worse, fastet copy speed. Beware: try new versions before exchanging blindly - even if most of the times new means better there for device support and being error-free. Have it in your emergency kit - jsut makes sense.

About the 3 Win versions: I checked each with linux for viruses before and after install. All clean.
I will include the portable Recuva into my "xCopy" dir on each machine and USB stick for emergencies: it might help if something else fails, even if the GUI was worst IMO. Speed was best of all Win-tools, so it gives you more chances at no or minimal risk. Reccommended.

I will also install Pandora NOW on every machine: relatively small, free - do it now before I have to get something from my OS/programs partition, overwriting stuff there when installing. If I had not already payed for NtfsUndelete I might consider buying an USB stick for a portable version to ease MY install/deployment. IMO best compromize of the 3. Reccommended heavily.

Going for Ntfsundelete for billable stuff was no mistake ***for this particular situation of being unprepared***. Will have to try if it will run on my other machines (was "installed", but program dir was on new external HD). Will have to see if after 1 year service/updates stops, but program still functions. GUI - as said IMO! - best with figuring out previous dir names, uncertain if slow copy speed might give better results on "less clean" deleted stuff. Was cheap enough, but if I had prepared myself better, would probably have not bought after finding that pandora and recuva found identical stuff. If it does NOT run on other machines because of missing things from install in registry, doubt I will buy it again in case of trouble on other machines internal HD problem, even if GUI is best. Might run it from installed machine with HD added as external via bridge. Reccommended, but the way it was monetarized left not a good impression. Nothing against getting money for your effort, even if other, less capable tools are free. But not as up-front as I like things to be. YMMV.

Personal Opinion: if I buy something, I want control over it, being runnable without trouble across all my machines/VM's. I want a license for me as a person, no strings attached, update period limited but runable forever with risk of problems if not updated and file formats change. I want SIMPLE portable install - xCopy via zip, easiest to check for virus in advance. YMMV and I hope you don't have to think about it when the shit already has hit the fan.

thomas

P.S. As there is no "OS" forum, put into vfp/setup-config, guessing more will read it there than Internet, Biz or Chatter - fits not really into each.