Bizarre happenings when deleting a directory

[Muse]

A real WTF moment this morning:

I have a Windows Phone, Lumia 520, with a 64GB microSD card (exFAT formatted) that was almost full, there was reported only 128MB free, I'd been getting a few alerts on the phone alerting me to the fact that the card was almost full.

Having around 48GB of MP3s on the card, I decide to delete a folder that has around 5GB, something like that. That folder is a subfolder of \Music. The folder name I was deleting was named 2007. I'd removed the card to an adapter, which I had in a card reader attached to a Windows 7 laptop via USB. I made sure that \2007 was highlighted when I pressed Shift + Delete. A window pops up asking me if I'm sure I want to permanently delete the folder. I looked carefully, didn't see a particular folder identified, it just said the folder. :\ However, I was sure that \2007 was highlighted when I initiated the delete, so I clicked [OK].

After all the deleting was done I see that every folder under \Music was deleted.

Well, I have all that on my server and I'm copying it all to the card. I'm doing it over my network because my Synology NAS doesn't support the card's exFAT format. It's taking a long time, of course, to copy ~40GB of data over my wireless network. I tried doing it with an ethernet connected XP laptop, but that machine said the card wasn't formatted! I suppose that means that XP can't read the exFAT formatted card... So, I'm doing it with the wirelessly connected Win7 machine.

What happened?! This is ridiculous.

 

[Elixer]

Use the command line to delete stuff and you won't have these kinds of issues.

In all seriousness, can't say I have come across this before, though, there are times when you select the root directory, and move the pointer to another directory to hi-lite it, but it still is on the root directory since you didn't double click to enter that directory.

 

[Muse]

Use the command line to delete stuff and you won't have these kinds of issues.

In all seriousness, can't say I have come across this before, though, there are times when you select the root directory, and move the pointer to another directory to hi-lite it, but it still is on the root directory since you didn't double click to enter that directory.

Likely it was user error. The subdirectory was highlighted (blue) but I guess the focus must have been on the parent directory, unbeknownst to me. Argh! It took around 5 hours to copy the data. It did, but for some reason one file wouldn't copy. I brought it over by other means later. I hope I don't make that mistake again, it could be disastrous in some circumstances. I always short circuit the recycle bin! That's why I press shift + delete instead of delete. I don't think it would matter for a memory stick though, I don't think recycle bin is in that equation.

It really would be nice of Microsoft to identify in a delete confirmation box just what is being deleted. In this instance at least the confirmation made no attempt to identify in any way. :\