Internal storage has been wiped out in blink of an eye

Question

I connected my phone (Redmi 1S) to my PC (Windows 7 64-Bit) as media device to view and copy files from PC to phone's internal storage. I saw some unwanted files & folder are present in storage and decided to delete them. i deleted some junk folders and disconnected my phone from PC. After that i opened gallery to see i recently transfered photos from PC. I just felt shocked to see that the gallery is showing photos only present in SD Card and my internal storage is empty. I opened file manager to check files and there is only pre defined folders are only present like Android, DCIM remaining files and folders are just gone. i don't know what happened. Please help me guys what just happened? and How the files are gone?


— Shankar Akunuri | Sources

Answer

You've most likely deleted the storage folder seen in the PC view.



This folder isn't necessarily present in the root of your internal storage, it's more like a link to your whole internal storage. I don't know about how it's generated, but since Windows disrespect links, deleting it is effectively wiping the internal storage itself. I had this happened to me on my own Nexus 4, and restoring data was a painful process, and in most senses failed - most of my music files are only available as 8MB fragments, and pictures are distorted or simply unreadable.



Do check out the data-recovery tag wiki for tips on attempting to restore it, but as I said, don't get hopes up on restoring data in one piece.


— Andy Yan | Sources

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