Samsung S22+ lost ~80GB of camera videos after Windows Cut & Paste (MTP). PC folder is 0 bytes. Any chance of recovery?
Hi everyone,
I’m hoping someone can help because these videos are extremely sentimental.
Phone: Samsung Galaxy S22+
PC: Windows 10
This is exactly what happened:
I connected my S22+ to my Windows 10 PC using USB.
My camera videos were in DCIM/Camera.
Using Windows File Explorer, I Cut the videos from DCIM and moved them into a new folder on the phone called Videos.
I then Cut the Videos folder from the phone and Pasted it onto my laptop.
Windows said the transfer completed, but it finished much faster than I expected for about 80GB.
The folder on the laptop exists but is 0 bytes and contains no files.
My laptop’s C: drive never increased by 80GB.
My phone now has about 80GB more free space.
Gallery, My Files, Recycle Bin and phone search can’t find the videos.
Windows search only finds WhatsApp videos, not the missing camera videos.
I have no Google Photos, OneDrive or Samsung Cloud backup.
I have stopped using the phone since this happened.
I’ve spoken to several phone repair/data recovery places and most said they couldn’t help because it’s a modern encrypted Samsung.
My questions are:
Has anyone seen this exact MTP Cut/Paste failure before?
Is there any forensic software or recovery method that has actually worked on an S22+ in this situation?
Is there anything else I should check before giving up?
These videos are irreplaceable, so I’d really appreciate any advice.