[Harnic]

Originally Posted by kentjohnson

So I've deleted files by accident in the past but this I just can't figure out. Currently, ALL of the files in the My Documents folder are missing. They literally just disappeared. They are still on the drive but I just can't see them (the space they occupied is still occupied) and I have other evidence for their existance that I will explain.

Info: XP Pro SP1; dell dimension 8100

Anyway, I've got a 40gb drive in it and all of my personal files are gone (except maybe 10 or so). I did a windows update which went fine. Then I tried to delete a profile that I no longer needed (I've done it before and know I didn't screw that part up) and it wouldn't delete after a few tries. I'd try and then it would freeze so I forced it to quit and tried again. After not working, I figured I'd just leave it since it didn't matter much and then a few hours later, I noticed all my files were gone. The files that disappeared were in the profile I was working from so I couldn't have deleted them if I had wanted to through the profile editor. I tried to do a system restore but that didn't help (as I didn't think it would). When I used the "Error-Checking" tool on the whole C-Drive, two movie files randomly came back but that's it. Thing is that my drive is only showing 7gb of free space. Considering I'm missing about 15gb of files, the computer is still seeing the space as used but I just can't see the files.

I just popped the drive back into the computer and curious about the defrag status I ran that tool. So I analyze it and 23% of the drive is fragmented and 42% of the files are fragmented. The most interesting part is where it lists the 'most fragmented files.' It says that my missing movie files are fragmented so the defrag utility knows that they are on the drive but still, I can't see them. Also, they are located in the 'recycler' folder in the c drive. I know I never deleted them but somehow, they are there now. If I go to the location the defrag utility tells me the files are located, it says there are no objects in the folder. However, if I check the properties of that folder, there are 14,000 files and 20gb taken up. One last thing is that I ran a virus check and some of the files it ran through included my missing files. The location again pointed to the folder that is empty.

So, it looks to me like the files are still on the drive from everything I can see but I just can't get to them. I have even copied the partition to a different drive and the 'hints' mentioned above to show that the files exist were even copied to the new drive.

Does anyone have any suggestions? For the amount I know about computers, I was really stupid to not back up and have lost a lot of data from 4 years of college that I would like to keep. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Kent

Have you tried going into Control Panel \Folder Options \View tab, under "advanced settings" & removing the check in the box beside "Hide Protected Operating System Files"? Your missing files may be in the hidden RECYCLER folder.