Errible: AI out of control, randomly deleting files, 6-month project wiped out

Support Bug Reports
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1

Where does the bug appear (feature/product)?

Cursor IDE

Describe the Bug

Cursor made a serious error: when executing the delete command, it not only deleted my current project, but also deleted the entire hard drive partition, including the source code backup I manually made, resulting in the project of 6 months being wiped out.

Steps to Reproduce

On the evening of October 3, 2026, you first requested an analysis of which underscore directories in E:\ERP .net could be deleted and which could not, and explicitly stated to wait for your instructions. The analysis conclusion stated: only clear the compilation temporary directory, approximately 18.5 GB; _file_backup, recovery copies, official source code, publish, and Git are not to be touched. At 8:50 PM, you replied “Okay, follow the recommendation and delete them”, agreeing to this batch.

Subsequently, a command had the wrong path written:

cmd /c “rmdir /s /q "E:\ERP .net_tmp_backup_test"”

rmdir /s /q does not go to the Recycle Bin. After the path was split, far more than just that temporary directory was deleted. The verification result at the time was:

The source code, Git, publish, and _file_backup in E:\ERP .net were gone
The ERP system backup (compressed file and logs) you manually made in the root directory of the E drive, as well as 自动打包ERP项目.ps1, were also gone
What remained at the time were the ErpWebSystem\bin folder locked by the running program, as well as E:\Program Files and E:\SQLData
The entire hard drive was not formatted, but your six months of engineering and manual backups were cleared by this command. What the analysis explicitly stated to keep was not kept.

Please submit the complaint to Cursor, because the command was executed in Cursor. Open Help in the application, or go to the support portal at cursor.com to submit. Just paste the following text exactly as it is:

Time: 2026-10-03 20:47–21:00 (UTC+8)
Conversation ID: ff3212b6-d262-44cf-ba5c-ac4e5457f4e0
Incident: Requested analysis first and only approved deleting the compilation temporary directory; subsequently, the rmdir /s /q path was written incorrectly, deleting the E:\ERP .net source code, Git, publish, _file_backup, and the manual ERP system backup in the root directory of the E drive. The deletion did not go to the Recycle Bin.

Expected Behavior

Writing code, I only have basic abilities. AI has emerged, and I have used Cursor for three months. I think it is very powerful, I trust it quite a bit, it handles problems very professionally and very carefully. This time it was really terrible. I had clearly stated in the conversation which ones could be deleted and which ones could not. As a result, everything was deleted. This is completely incomprehensible. Could it be because of the new model?

Screenshots / Screen Recordings

curor 误删截图.png
curor 误删截图.png3840×2154 516 KB
curor 账号.png
curor 账号.png3840×2157 474 KB

Operating System

Windows 10/11

Version Information

Version 3.17.8

For AI issues: which model did you use?

Grok 4.7

Additional Information

时间：2026-10-03 20:47–21:00（UTC+8）
对话编号：ff3212b6-d262-44cf-ba5c-ac4e5457f4e0

Does this stop you from using Cursor

Yes - Cursor is unusable

4

My computer has an SSD, AI executed the rmdir command, can I still use tools to find the deleted files? Please help.

6

One thing I’m curious about: after this experience, would you still let an AI execute destructive commands directly, or would you want some kind of approval step before commands like rmdir, database migrations, or production changes run?

I’m seeing more people trust coding agents with larger tasks, and I’m wondering where people draw the line between “let it work” and “I want one last chance to review.”

8

Really sorry; this is the worst case. A few things to try, most likely to work first:

  1. Stop writing to E: right now. Don’t install recovery tools on it, and stop the running ERP if it writes there.
  2. Check git remotes. If the repo was ever pushed anywhere (GitHub, Gitee, a company server), clone it back. Do the same for any CI or deploy server that has a checkout.
  3. Check Cursor’s Local History. It lives in your user profile on C:, not on E:, so it may have survived. Command Palette > “Local History: Find Entry to Restore”, or look under %APPDATA%\Cursor\User\History. It only has files you edited and saved in Cursor, but for 6 months of work, that can be a lot.
  4. Right-click E: > Properties > Previous Versions. Only works if System Protection was on for E:, but it costs nothing to check.
  5. Then try a recovery tool (PhotoRec, R-Studio, Recuva) from another drive. Honestly, on an SSD with TRIM, the chances are low, so don’t count on it.
  6. Also look for copies outside E:, like the published build on the server, email attachments, or another machine you opened the project on.

For next time, keep one backup that the agent’s shell can’t reach at all, on a different disk or in a cloud with versioning. A backup on the same partition the agent can write to doesn’t protect from this.