Hello, This morning with a big surprise I found that a lot of files had been deleted from my external HDD On the desktop I had a look in recycle bin and could notice it was empty. So sad, I plugged the external HDD on USB port and had a look again in recycle bin, at my surprise many files were there, waiting to be deleted and I could restore them by chance. I unplugged the extrenal HDD and plugged another one and noticed a file was present again in the recycle bin waiting to be deleted., then I unplugged the HHD and tried to cancel the famous file with no success, the only way was to plugged again the HDD. So strange situation as the recycle bin icon does not look as it is full, so I don't know if this is a bug from Windows 8 or not but will take care in future as I never seen that problem with Windows 7.
Each HDD, internal and external has it's own Recycle Bin which is hidden by default settings. Using the shortcut from desktop will show only the files from the HDD's connected at the same time you're checking!
It could have be done by User mistakes, by an infection, and hacker using an Backdoor Trojan, etc., etc.! Check all of your Log Files, starting with Event Log! and for future work may you decrypt your external drives or something like that!
Yes perhaps a mistake, as I play with many external HDDs, do you know if there is a way to avoid this default settings ?
Sorry: NO! Never forget: A computer isn't intelligent! "He" could only follow instructions and do that exactly , good or bad!
Win8 defaults to a move to recycle bin without prompt. That may be why you didn't notice. I hate this particular choice that they made... I liked the old win7 default of asking permission...