there is software that can recover deleted files from a hard drive... as long as you haven't over written the drive... you may get lucky. you can try some hard drive recovery software for free, it will show you the deleted files before you buy... goodluck :)
 

Would it be ironic if installing the deleted files recovery utility overwrote the deleted files you want to recover?

I would recommend to anyone:
Go and buy a professional backup-software for 100$ that makes a automatic daily backup at the same time to an other harddrive (best is NAS). It makes NO sense if you make backups by yourself. Because you forget it and than this happens.

My "clean audio folder"  just froze everytime I tried to run it.
So, I opted for the CWAF tool yesterday to get rid of 6 years of built up wavs. The advantage there it seems is that you don't delete anything. You move the orphaned files.
 
The jury's still out as to if I lost anything I needed. I think some Melodyne wavs may have been moved and maybe some other various mix wavs but not too big a deal. Anyway, I just moved the orphaned 50gigs to a backup drive for safe keeping if I ever  come across a file with missing data. 
 
 

I like the idea of getting a dedicated back-up soft. Please recommend.

Piriform seems to be working-thank you.

QUESTION: what is the default setting for the Clean audio folder? Somehow changing the drive letter and the recurse toggle gave it permission to delete all the wav data in the drive I switched it to. I switched the normal c:cakewalk drive to D: Production where my audio is saved, streamed, etc.

Why after 1000 times did it decide it had the power to do that? Because those .wav are not being used in.a Sonar Project folder somehow I gave Sonar Platinum the power to delete every .wav file on my D : drive. It also deleted a backup of my Play Libraries I kept on my C drive it seems.

I guess I can look on my laptop DAW and see what the default folder and to check or uncheck the recurse.

Learned my lesson years ago
 
I gave up using the default file save location and went to using per project folders. This keeps each song and ALL files in a separate location including all used/unused/deleted wave and MIDI files txt files etc.
 
I have a laptop and a desktop computer which I use interchangeably and all song files are on both computers so I immediately have an in-house backup in case one computer fails.
 
Every Saturday morning I use Acronis backup software to do an image backup of my entire disk on each computer and these are kept on separate USB drives.
 
On the desktop , all my song files are On a separate drive D: and in addition to the image backups previously described I also do a copy-replace of all the songs I am currently working on. These are kept on a separate USB drive.
In most songs, I make multiple corrections changes etc. and I use what others have suggested, doing a file-save as when the song is completed so that unused files are not saved. I do keep a copy of the original folder for about two weeks until I'm sure I'm no longer going to need the unused files.
 
I hope you can find all/some of your files but strongly suggest using per folder savings and an external backup.
 
Fred

Really I can not think that you never back up your project files, saved using per project audio folders.  on an external drive at least once a month.

chuckebaby
im not sure I understand how that happens.
I use the clean audio folder loyally after every 8-10 projects.
and I've noticed it scans my external drives as well. but it always prompts me with a list of files to be deleted.
Note: Photo is older / Sonar 8.5

 
Typically after cleaning all my folders (before I archive them) I use the CWAF Tool. This helps me find redundant, useless files or files that no longer go with projects.
 
I would like to see an update to this tool though, its old and slow as molasses. However once you scan one project using the clean audio folder utility, Sonar remembers these folders so the next project scanned goes a lot faster.

 This is one of the best features in a DAW.  I never had issues.
 

why would one even need this tool?
 
when I delete a clip from a project, i notice it deletes the file wav file associated with it in the project audio folder.  why are there people with so many orphaned wav files?

Gentlemen, please read the thread again (Fred and Iapasoa.) I do use per project folders and I didn't lose any of my project files or .wav data from any Sonar Projects. I lost my mixes. I do have back-ups of everything. That is why its so weird.