Winamp 5 install

[saintcat1]

I recently dowloaded and installed winamp 5.0 In the process, it targeted my winamp 3 installation and somehow eliminated every file in the directory, even though 5.0 was being installed in a seperate location. This bothers me not only because my playlists vanished, but many of my MP3s as well. My Question is how do I recover them? I doubt that the installation deleted over 1,000 files in seconds, but I can't seem to find them. I've already tried a system restoration, and that did not help.

System specs:
HP Pavilion ze4200 WinXP
640MB RAM, 60GB Drive

Thanks

[mark]

try your normal winamp folder. You must have clciked the option to remove winamp3 and import it's stuff.

[saintcat1]

I did attempt that. The files are definitely not where they were before the installation.

[mark]

no, the winamp5 folder

[bstier]

yea it happened to me too...they should have maybe explained that more, i didnt think it meant that it would delete thousands of mp3s. why would they even make that as an option

* Im feeling like i wanna throw my monitor against the wall or something..

[Reaper]

Originally posted by bstier
yea it happened to me too...they should have maybe explained that more, i didnt think it meant that it would delete thousands of mp3s. why would they even make that as an option

* Im feeling like i wanna throw my monitor against the wall or something..

The real question that should be asked is why put your mp3s in a program's folder which can be uninstalled? Use common sense people.

[Drunken Master]

THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T STORE YOUR MUSIC IN AN INSTALLATION DIRECTORY!

n00b's, the whole lot of you.

</flame>

[james]

Please use some common sense, and store PROGRAMS in PROGRAM FILES, and MUSIC in MY MUSIC.

Even for n00bs that'd be easy, surely

[AngelPHiSH]

seriously, that's just dumb.. i mean HELLO.. what the hell did you THINK would happen when the program directory gets deleted? :roll:

[james]

OMG! TRISH! WOAH!

[AngelPHiSH]

*bows*

[mark]

AngelPHiSH!!!!

[Nunzio390]

OK people. Let's not poke fun at saintcat1 and bstier. Sure, now they know never to place anything of value within any program folders in the future. Let's just call it a "lessoned learned" and leave it at that. OK?

Let's instead try and help them...

@ saintcat1 and bstier...

Never add anything of value that you want to keep (in your case the MP3's) into ANY Windows program folder(s) and then expect anything to remain intact after a complete uninstall of the program. True, not every Win32 program wipes the entire install directory. This is dependent on how the install package is authored. Unfortunately, Winamp3's install package was not authored that way. But common sense would dictate that you wouldn't "add" important files within a program's installation directory, and instead keep files within their own distinct folders (eg: My Music or Music, etc).

But it may not be too late to recover the deleted MP3's, even if they never made it to your Recycle bin (which they probably did not). Of course, if they are in the Recycle bin (doubtful), you can easily recover them by opening your Recycle bin, selecting/highlighting all the files and then select "Restore". If you have a utility installed like Norton's Protected Recycle bin, then there is no problem at all. You will be able to recover any and all files "permanently" deleted (even through a program uninstall). Do you have something like that? If not, then get something like it so that this problem cannot occur in the future.

Regardless, read through this guide on how to recover your files. Read both Part One and especially Part Two (if they are not present in your Recycle bin).