Lost photos weren't copied, so check card

Q I took digital photos of a special retirement event attended by many longtime friends of the retiree. Afterward, I moved the folder of photos from the camera to my computer's "My Computer" folder for storage, then emptied the camera card by dragging the contents into the PC's Recycle Bin.

Now I can't find the photos anywhere. I have looked through many folders manually, and have used the Windows "search" feature to no avail. Where are the photos? And does the Recycle Bin retain documents but not photos?

COLLEEN DREW, MINNEAPOLIS

A There is a chance you may be able to recover the deleted photos from the camera's erased flash memory card, provided that you haven't overwritten the photos with new ones.

Go to Download.com and search for "USB flash recovery" to find software that will try to recover the lost photos from your camera card. I didn't see any free programs, but some offer free trials. So you should be able to see if there are any photos to recover without buying any software.

What went wrong? Unfortunately, you didn't properly store the photos on your PC.

"My Computer" isn't a storage location. It's a directory of the storage devices that are available on your PC, including the hard disk, the DVD drive, any network drives and any external storage devices such as flash drives. But "copying" photos to the My Computer directory doesn't store them on any of those devices -- or anywhere else.

Why can't the Recycle Bin help you retrieve the lost photos? When deleting items from your PC's hard drive, the Recycle Bin acts as a safety net. It retains deleted items until you manually empty the bin or "undelete" the files and send them back to their original locations. But the Recycle Bin doesn't retain files that were deleted from external flash memory devices, such as your camera's memory card.

In the future, you should copy your photos to actual storage folders, such "My Documents" or "My Pictures" in Windows XP, or "Pictures" in Windows Vista or Windows 7. The Desktop can also store photos.

Also, it's a good practice not to erase your camera's memory card until you've looked on your PC to make sure the photos have been copied there.