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EDITING TO ADD MORE INFO BELOW HELP PLEASE! I finished moving pictures and videos from Ubuntu to an USB drive, it took several hrs. Then finally showed a message saying that all 904 files were moved. I can see the folders but they are empty. Please tell me that I can recover my files.

O.S. is Ubuntu 22.04; I did not use the command line, I just dragged the files from "Documents" and dropped them in the USB.The file system type is exfat. And yes, I waited until the system finished moving the files to the USB and used the "eject" option before even trying to remove it. Also I am a beginner user, not very savvy just trying to do my best and I am so sad this happened. I'd love to find a way to fix it.

Thank you!

Adriana
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    How did you move the files? – Soren A Nov 10 '23 at 14:50
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    More questions: What version of Ubuntu? What kind of USB drive is it? What file system in the USB drive? Did you wait for the system to flush the buffers before unplugging the USB drive? (You do that by 'unmounting' all partitions on the drive or 'ejecting' the drive.) - Please answer all questions by editing your original question to add the relevant information. – sudodus Nov 10 '23 at 15:21
  • Does this answer your question? How can I check the health of my hard drive? – karel Nov 10 '23 at 20:59
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    You've provided no clear command (or other detail) as to what was done, only your intention (move files). Best advice I can offer is to look at your command history to see what you actually did; though if you used a file-manager it'll depend on what file-manager you used & what settings it worked on (you've given no details; we don't even know your Ubuntu product/release) – guiverc Nov 10 '23 at 22:31
  • Hi, I edited my post to add more information. Thanks. – Adriana Nov 11 '23 at 00:30
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    You've provided a few more details; thank you. Ubuntu 22.04 Server? or Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop; it's helpful if you're specific and we're not guessing (file-manager would imply desktop; but it's best if you're specific & not making us guess as that wrong advice could be given) Being specific as to where you from (I assume "/home/$USER/Documents" to an unspecified location on a non-native (exfat) file-system (meaning metadata couldn't be fully preserved) may also help (I assumed Documented was a native file-system but you didn't specify) – guiverc Nov 11 '23 at 00:47
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    Please note, as you didn't specify the end file-system (just USB), if you dragged & dropped onto a live system that Ubuntu was working from (you gave no specifics as to directory), they go to RAM & not an saved file-system and thus will disappear on reboot. This shouldn't apply if system wasn't live and the USB you mention is external media; but you've not been specific as far as I can understand. – guiverc Nov 11 '23 at 00:49
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    @Adriana, the extra description in the question makes me think that you did the right things. It should work, but did not. One reason why it did not work might be that the USB drive is failing. This can happen with USB pendrives (without any warning): the drives seems to receive data and store it, but it doesn't. For this reason it is a good idea to copy files and not remove the files from the original location until you are sure that they can be read in the new location. – sudodus Nov 11 '23 at 09:17
  • Anyway, maybe this link can help you analyze the problem and find a solution. - If, on the other hand, the USB drive is OK, maybe only the file system is corrupted and the file data are still in the memory cells. Then you can try to recover them with PhotoRec. It does not recover the file names and not the directory structure, and it can be a lot of work, but chances are that you can recover valuable data. – sudodus Nov 11 '23 at 09:24
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    Thank you @sudodus. Unfortunately I had issues when trying to copy the files so I moved them instead which I probably shouldn't have done. I will try to recover what I can with the program you are suggesting, I appreciate your help. – Adriana Nov 11 '23 at 22:27

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