Absolutely Friggin Baffled....Help Please

JInglee · Feb 2, 2008, 09:26 PM

HI.

I am at a complete loss to understand this.

I am not typically a "slack jawed-mouth breather type" and a fairly knowledgeable end user, but right now, I am completely slacked jawed and stumped.

OK.

I have a folder in My Documents where I keep all of my downloads and inside this download folder are sub folders for extracted files and programs, each with their respective folders.

Fine.

A few minutes ago I went to retrieve something from one of these folders. All of the folders are there but nothing is inside of them!!!

As of now, all of my folders that contained downloads, all extracted files, photos, MP3's and video clips are...gone.
Gone, gone, gone....!

Even sub folders remain but anything that was inside that related to a particular program are...gone.

I feel like I have stepped off a cliff or something....

Last night I was listening to an audio book comprised of like 20 mp3's. At this moment I am looking at the folder that held the extracted audio files....gone. The rar files that they came in....gone, only the named folder that contained the files remain.

Jesus....my head is spinning.

Anyone with any insight would be much appreciated

Best

**kris23** · Feb 2, 2008, 09:45 PM

first off, is this folder governed by any 3rd party application(s) that downloads the files into said directories (eg. limewire, azureus, utorrent, bitorrent, etc) or do you do that by hand?

next possibility, now don't take this the wrong way its just that it tends to happen to me and others rather often.... are you sure you werent dumb/clumsy enough to hit a delete all items in folders kind of function in an application? lol i did that once in azureus on accident

and lastly, did you try and refresh the folder(s)? right-click then hit refresh?

and make sure the folder sizes are the same. if they read 0 bytes even after a refresh then your files are gone

cozumel · Feb 2, 2008, 09:54 PM

I'm sure you logged on correctly but just thought I should ask you to check that you logged on as the correct user to access your files.

JInglee · Feb 2, 2008, 10:00 PM

HI

Thanks for the reply.

I use Directory Opus often and had run a registry cleaner after an uninstall of an app.

Not beyond me to make that kiind of mistake but cant think of any situation where I would be offered that kind of delete option (sub folders, et)-

Ever hear of any kind of virus that would result in this kind of thing. Kind of spooky really. Like some kind of, not completely, viscous joke.
Well live and learn.

Do you happen to have any exam-oles of 3rd party software that may result in this kind of extensive deletion?

well, thanks.

**kris23** · Feb 2, 2008, 10:05 PM

if you configure limewire to download content into folders like splitting the Shared folder into Music, Videos, Programs, and such you can have limewire delete the content if you just select all and press delete.

sometimes i accidentally click delete instead of copy and then i am like OH SHIT! then hit cancel right away.

so refreshing the folders doesnt bring them back huh? that sucks.

cozumel · Feb 2, 2008, 10:17 PM

What about using an undelete program? (Might help if you're lucky as long as you haven't overwritten the diskspace)

JInglee · Feb 2, 2008, 10:37 PM

Thanks for the help. Refresh is a no go. Live and learn. At least not system files or installed programs. Seems isolated to my download and extracted folders and all sub folders.

Damn strange.

Best

**kris23** · Feb 2, 2008, 10:49 PM

i never trust software like that in my system........

***temeteus82*** · Feb 3, 2008, 04:00 AM

Thread moved to more better part of the forums.

H3X4D3C1M4L · Feb 4, 2008, 02:22 PM

Could be too late but might try going Start --> run --> cmd then typing chkdsk /f /x /v

But I think your computer might have been cleaned a little too thoroughly

MatthewC · Apr 26, 2008, 06:58 PM

it might be a bit late now, but if they dissapeared and you haven't been putting too much stuff on your hard drive in what, the past 3 months (I highly doubt it:P) then you can recover them because when a file is deleted it goes in the free space marked as *overwriteable* so it appears as free space when actually it's the stuff you've deleted it.
you can search on google for programs that can undelete, and i think there's a program that comes with windows that lets you do it too.

Tipstaff · Apr 27, 2008, 05:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by H3X4D3C1M4L

Could be too late but might try going Start --> run --> cmd then typing chkdsk /f /x /v

This would be my suggestion too. If the partition informtaion, namely the table of contents gets corrupt then this very thing can happen. However, chkdsk can be a bit distructive, so I recommend to use a different program instead first called "HDD Regenerator", then run chkdsk afterwards.

Give the site I linked to a read for more on what it does, then do yourself a favor, and look for a disc called "Hiren's BootCD". It's a bootable utilities disc, and on it, among other things, is HDD Regenerator (listed under Hard Drive Tools). The latest is v.9.5, however HDD Regenerator hasn't changed in a long time, so you can download any of the v.9.x discs (don't go any lower though unless you have an older system hardware wise). Be prepared to leave the computer alone for a while as it can take some time to complete the scan.

BTW, check your PM, JInglee.

LukeK · Apr 28, 2008, 02:48 AM

This happened to my sister recently and we found out she had logged into a different user account so her "my documents" etc were all a different user and therefore not in the folders.

Obviously I doubt this is anything to do with your case especially if you only have one user account, but the moral of the story is to always set up a partition or another hard drive for files, so if the OS goes belly up and snuffs it, then you have things on another drive. I don't trust the OS default folders for anything like this.