OMG Need help asap

[wilma2299]

Is there anyway for me to undo the file movs after I've closed spacemonger?!?!?! Please help, I think I royally messed up my computer!!!!

[seanw]

I'm sorry to say that the only thing you can really do is move all the files back, if you remember what you moved and where it came from. Sadly, there's no automatic "undo" for circumstances like this. SpaceMonger is a power tool, and does exactly what you tell it, neither more nor less: Like an electric saw, it can be used to build a house --- and it can be used to slice your finger off if you're not careful. The user's manual warns against deleting or moving files when you don't know what they are for exactly this reason.

The best I can tell you is to try to put things back where they belong, and then in the future, be especially careful of touching files in these folders, since they're often essential for Windows to work correctly:

• C:\Windows itself and at least half of the stuff under it.
• C:\Windows\System32 and everything under it.
• C:\Windows\Inf
• C:\Program Files\Common Files
• Any file with a .dat or .sys or .ini extension, especially those in C:\ and C:\Documents and Settings or C:\Users
• C:\ntldr, or, in general, if it's a file in C:\ itself, you should be very careful of touching it.
• C:\Documents and Settings\yourname\Local Settings or C:\Users\yourname\Local Settings
• C:\Documents and Settings\yourname\Application Data or C:\Users\yourname\Application Data

If you moved or deleted any of these things, you must move them back for Windows to function.

Unfortunately, these are so essential to the functioning of Windows that you may not be able to boot your computer if you've moved or deleted them. If that's the case, you may have to go through a system recovery, which will vary depending on how your computer was initially set up. If you have an original Windows install CD, you can use that to perform a recovery, and while it's cumbersome and time-consuming, it generally works, although it can take quit a while to get things back to normal afterward. If you only have a "restore" CD from your manufacturer, though, you may have no choice but to reinstall your entire system from scratch. (Note that if you have to do a full reinstall, your files can be recovered before you do that reinstall, but it must be done by someone technically saavy, and is far too complex for me to explain here.)

Not knowing exactly what the status of your computer is right now, I can't tell you exactly how to proceed; but if you can explain more about your circumstance, I'll do my best to help.

[wilma2299]

Hi Sean,

Is there anyway to find duplicate files? it seems that as I go through and move files back and forth, they are duplicating the files.

Jill