DCIM folder disappeared

[chepe1]

I connected my phone to the computer to copy & delete photoes and videos...after about 5th file, folder view suddenly went blank and DCIM folder had disappeared. All my pics and videos were gone. I restarted the phone, but it only created a new DCIM folder which was empty.

And to pre-empt, no I did not accidentally click on the entire folder, or paint all the files and then pressed delete. I was deleting files one-by-one.

So any way to get them back? I did have backups from nearly all of them, but I'd still like to recover. I tried couple of recovery programs, but they either wanted to root or use the phone as USB mass storage, and could not manage to get either to work.

[Strampke]

This program is free, open source and secure.

You will have to learn to work with it.

As far as I know it's the best there is.

PS

Use dd to copy the whole internal memory or sd wherever your data is to copy it to a spare (EMPTY!) HDD.

Then explore this HDD with PhotoRec

[chepe1]

Mmm, thanks for the tip, but I don't have spare hard disk around, and acquiring one for this purpose is not really worth the trouble and expense as actual number of completely lost pics is relatively small.

Mostly interested to know if there's a way to get around rooting/USB mass storage issues which prevented my other attempts from working.

[Strampke]

Relativity invitation.

What's gained, what's lost.

Don't look back, always look forward.

Don't make the same mistake again or try to avoid circumstances that are prone to failure.

Live happy ever after.

[chepe1]

Well, I didn't actually do any mistake (other than maybe not immediately backup my new pics), the silly phone just decided to erase everything on its own.