Maybe the photographer has back ups?

Oh shoot! I'd feel terrible if she didn't have a backup.

Seriously people? There are loads of softwares out there that can recover deleted files. I suggest OP uses one before his momma boards the crazy freakout train.

Hold up. Programs like that are useless unless they are either able to collect a backup upon starting the computer, or given a manual one to search through that contains the photos. They also use and obscene amount of space to save ~5 backups at any time. I hate to bring up people's mom's but considering OP's mum couldn't get rid of her junk, it's highly unlikely that she would have been computer savvy (hopefully not offensive, sorry OP's mum) enough to create backups on either of these.

(Assuming she deleted the files correctly and completely. And yes people, it is possible, just very difficult.)

Files are potentially recoverable until they've been written over, and partially until many times. If it's done quickly before those areas are written over is the best chance. I suggest a professional, if you can accidentally delete wedding photos, you're probably not to be trusted to recover them. Worth the money to try. Sadly, real live doesn't work like CSI though. :(

If she has Windows 7 she can use System restore to get them back. All you need to do is right click on the folder that contained the files, (or any folder above that), and select properties, then the previous versions tab. open a date that the files were there and click and drag them back. Older Windows versions can do this with Shadow Explorer. Not sure about W8 though. PV was removed in 8.

I'd say not only does OP, but OP's family, deserves it for not even having thought of burning the photos into a CD or onto a flash driver if they were that important.

Undelete software, go!

I'd pick Windows 7 over 8 anytime. OP, never ever decongest a computer that's not yours. It never has a happy ending.

if my kid did that, "at least your computer works again" ain't gonna cut it.

that kinda stuff is usually recoverable. it just takes a bit of patience.

You don't need a professional, there is a program called Recuva that I have used, and several years ago I used another recovery program which allowed me to recover 200gb of data from a drive I had formatted as it had corrupted itself.

She managed to "accidentally" delete the photos, she probably shouldn't be messing around with software.

I too recommend Recuva. It requires no professional training to use.

System restore only restores programs that are newly installed or uninstalled, it doesn't touch files such as media or documents.

System Restore can recover deleted files, but only if there's a restore point for them. that's why creating backups and restore points is important. If there were never any restore points created, the computer would have to be reset to whenever the last major system change was made as that's usually when Windows makes them automatically.

You don't know what you are talking about.

Yes it does It puts it back to an earlier day

Or OP just made a mistake. Some laptops have really sensitive mouses and will click things without you meaning to.

Yeah except windows asks like 5 times if you're sure you want to delete them. One misclick isn't gonna cut it here.

This doesn't warrant a ydi. If anyone deserves it the mom does for not backing up her files.

What is OP ?

Obtuse Penis

You could be reading too much into this...sometimes a fuckup is just a fuckup.

#9. I know it's really too plain to b real but..they are OP's mother's photos. Like her personal copies. Believe it.