Can you undo a delete - Page 2

jgt1942 · 06-03-2013, 05:01 AM

Thanks to everyone for the recent input, now I understand.
1) I'm now backing up my Calibre folder
2) Yesterday when I opened the recycle bin, selected the folders for the books I deleted, right-clicked and selected restore, Win7 did a restore action for the files but I don't think they were placed in the Calibre folder. Now they no longer exist in the recycle bin and I cannot find them anywhere on my system. FYI I used the search tool EVERYTHING to search each of my drives for the metadata.opf file and then looked at the date. I'm making the assumption that the file would have date when it was deleted. If this is not true then it would be difficult for me to verify. When I added the last group of books to Calibre I added about 1000 and have been going through a massive cleanup.
3) @kovidgoyal - your method of restore is GREAT and personally I don't care if the date added to Calibre is different. I've been modifying the date of the books as I clean up to help identify what remains to be cleaned. Example, I add a large group of books to Calibre (let's say 1000) I clean a group of 100 or so books (correcting the metadata and getting covers if necessary), I then change the date of this group of 100 to a day prior to the date I added the big group of 1000 books. Thus the only books with the date equal to the date I added the big group are the books that I still need to clean. After I change the date I then polish the group (so I now have the new covers) and now I'm ready to move on to the next small group.
4) At this point I'm just going to assume the books are lost and consider it a learning experience.

Thanks again for all the help.

itimpi · 06-03-2013, 08:59 AM

Regarding 2) I expect that the files WERE restored to the calibre library, but do not show up in the Calibre GUI because they are no longer referenced in the Calibre metadata.db database. One of the options in the Library Maintenance (after checking the metadata) is to look for a mismatch between what is shown in the Calibre GUI and what files are stored in the underlying file system. This allows you to find and correct such mismatches, and is quite likely to result in you finding your 'lost' books.

jgt1942 · 06-03-2013, 02:52 PM

OH DARN, I created a length post last night but I must have goofed and not hit the reply button. In a nutshell, I think I've exhausted all possibilities to recover the deleted books and all have failed. When I let Windows 7 perform the restore from the recycle bin it appeared to work and the files were no longer in the recycle bin but I could not find them in Calibre.
At this time I'm just going to consider this a learning experience and move forward.

@kovidgoyal your suggestions are simple and straight forward. I will keep this in mind for future reference. I don't care that the date of adding to Calibre would be different but it is good to know. I've been using the date to determine what I need to clean, Example, I added 1000 books, I then clean (update the metadata - correct author name, correct title, correct cover, download comments, etc.) on 100 books, I then select the 100, change the date to something prior to the original date, I then polish the 100 and then move on to the next group remaining. A lot of the books I'm adding are from sources that really messed up the metadata. There may be better ways to perform this action but I'm not aware of them.
Thanks to all for the suggestions and big thanks to kovidgoyal for the simple method.

alanHd · 06-03-2013, 06:06 PM

If I read that right you still haven't restored the books.

Did you run Check Library under Library Maintenance. The second part of that asks if you want to check the books in your library against the list of books in your database.

This will allow you to identify all the books. easiest way would be to let calibre delete them then use Kovids suggestion to re add them

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06-03-2013, 05:01 AM	#16
jgt1942 Connoisseur Posts: 63 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2010 Device: iPad	Thanks to everyone for the recent input, now I understand. 1) I'm now backing up my Calibre folder 2) Yesterday when I opened the recycle bin, selected the folders for the books I deleted, right-clicked and selected restore, Win7 did a restore action for the files but I don't think they were placed in the Calibre folder. Now they no longer exist in the recycle bin and I cannot find them anywhere on my system. FYI I used the search tool EVERYTHING to search each of my drives for the metadata.opf file and then looked at the date. I'm making the assumption that the file would have date when it was deleted. If this is not true then it would be difficult for me to verify. When I added the last group of books to Calibre I added about 1000 and have been going through a massive cleanup. 3) @kovidgoyal - your method of restore is GREAT and personally I don't care if the date added to Calibre is different. I've been modifying the date of the books as I clean up to help identify what remains to be cleaned. Example, I add a large group of books to Calibre (let's say 1000) I clean a group of 100 or so books (correcting the metadata and getting covers if necessary), I then change the date of this group of 100 to a day prior to the date I added the big group of 1000 books. Thus the only books with the date equal to the date I added the big group are the books that I still need to clean. After I change the date I then polish the group (so I now have the new covers) and now I'm ready to move on to the next small group. 4) At this point I'm just going to assume the books are lost and consider it a learning experience. Thanks again for all the help.

06-03-2013, 08:59 AM	#17
itimpi Wizard Posts: 4,553 Karma: 950151 Join Date: Nov 2008 Device: Sony PRS-950, iphone/ipad (Marvin/iBooks/QuickReader)	Regarding 2) I expect that the files WERE restored to the calibre library, but do not show up in the Calibre GUI because they are no longer referenced in the Calibre metadata.db database. One of the options in the Library Maintenance (after checking the metadata) is to look for a mismatch between what is shown in the Calibre GUI and what files are stored in the underlying file system. This allows you to find and correct such mismatches, and is quite likely to result in you finding your 'lost' books.

06-03-2013, 02:52 PM	#18
jgt1942 Connoisseur Posts: 63 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2010 Device: iPad	OH DARN, I created a length post last night but I must have goofed and not hit the reply button. In a nutshell, I think I've exhausted all possibilities to recover the deleted books and all have failed. When I let Windows 7 perform the restore from the recycle bin it appeared to work and the files were no longer in the recycle bin but I could not find them in Calibre. At this time I'm just going to consider this a learning experience and move forward. @kovidgoyal your suggestions are simple and straight forward. I will keep this in mind for future reference. I don't care that the date of adding to Calibre would be different but it is good to know. I've been using the date to determine what I need to clean, Example, I added 1000 books, I then clean (update the metadata - correct author name, correct title, correct cover, download comments, etc.) on 100 books, I then select the 100, change the date to something prior to the original date, I then polish the 100 and then move on to the next group remaining. A lot of the books I'm adding are from sources that really messed up the metadata. There may be better ways to perform this action but I'm not aware of them. Thanks to all for the suggestions and big thanks to kovidgoyal for the simple method.

06-03-2013, 06:06 PM	#19
alanHd Addict Posts: 374 Karma: 1408579 Join Date: Jul 2012 Location: UK Device: Kindle Touch, Ipod Touch, Ipad Air	If I read that right you still haven't restored the books. Did you run Check Library under Library Maintenance. The second part of that asks if you want to check the books in your library against the list of books in your database. This will allow you to identify all the books. easiest way would be to let calibre delete them then use Kovids suggestion to re add them

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