chris9

Well, i was getting tired of not be able to fully remove the ATI drivers. So i started Googling. I found driver cleaner.

Looked fine, so i tried it. This turned out to be a very bad decision. I of course should have known not to let 3rd party programs screw around with my files.

Unfortunately i had several truecrypt containers stored in a directory called \ATI\
Driver Cleaner just wiped the entire directory, without recognizing the contents as non ATI. These containers hosted my entire archive of documents, e-mail, papers, etc, etc, from the past 10 years. As truecrypt containers are encrypted it is impossible to find the files with any databack util. My only chance would be a hex util.. but as the drive itself is over 1tb , filled with jpg's and other stuff.......... a needle in a haystack.

I am very shocked driver cleaner just wiped those files without recognizing it as non ATI.

Zardon

are you the guy who emailed us earlier? i think we explained that what you are complaining about is actually what the program is intended to do. That is remove that folder amongst other things.

I find it hard to believe that anyone would keep important files in a driver folder as well as not backing them up to a CD, DVD or another drive - for 10 years?

I mean I understand you are annoyed but the program is documented to do this and that is the whole point of it !

Also I am confused, you say the programs were stored in the ATI folder but you have no idea why?

brutusmaximus

So let me just confirm this situation.

You installed a program that you didn't know anything about, what it did and how it worked even though there is documentation detailing it.

You had 10 years of files stored in an ATI driver folder (im guessing you didn't get the 1tb drive ten years ago as they didnt make anything that size then). You only have one copy of all these files and you didn't even know they were in there in the first place?

This has to be a hoax, no one has 10 years of important files stored on a single drive without backups, inside an ATI driver folder.

You need to learn

a: to read documentation before running programs.
b: make sure you know where your files are stored in the first place.
c: make backups.
d: stop bitching because of your stupidity.

I mean we sympathise, but I fail to see how you can blame a program for doing what it is sold to do, then make statements that you didnt know that 10 years of life important documents were in a "temporary" designed folder created by an ATI graphics driver install.

Ludicrous.

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clanman

ermm fishy one.

You suddenly can't find files you have kept for ten years but just "knew" today they were in an ATI folder? Wouldn't you know where you stored something so important ?

Id say you ditched the files long ago and just want to blame someone for it.

Get a DVD burner, *newsflash* HDD's can fail immediately. never have a single copy of anything semi important.

longhorn1000

ive been using Drivercleaner since it started, the whole point of it is to tidy up these things! hint is in "driver" and "cleaner". You know why it ditches those folders? part of the windows lame process is that it will reinstall drivers from these folders that sometimes you don't want. The program would be lacking in implementation if it did'nt remove the folders. Also ATI driver folder is just for that, its not a place to put 10 years of work. I can't believe anyone is daft enough to do that, but as someone else said if you didn't even know they were there in the first place and suddenly can't find them, start opening up all the other folders on the HD and im sure you have just dragged them someone else by accident.

Dude you don't store mega important files in a driver folder that ATI create as a temporary install location.

If you are smart enough to use a hex editor you can certainly work out the fault in this case is completely yours.

humonous

so you are sure you set truecrypt to make backups to an ATI driver folder? you sound like you really don't have a clue what you have done to be honest man.

its a weird post I have to say, and I dont mean to cause offense, because you seemingly have some computer knowledge when you say that you can use a hex program, but you got into this situation in the first instance by backing up files and obviously MOVING some from older drives, all into a ATI driver folder? You are aware than 1tb drives+ are relatively new right? no way you had this computer set up initially by "accident" to an ATI driver folder from 10 years ago. some of these encrypted files have came from older drives etc. Why did they all mysteriously end up in an ATI driver folder anyway?

Wacked man, absolutely wacked.

chris9

Ehm...

Perhaps my English was bad in the first post.

Of course I knew these files where in there. I did have backups in the past, but just not right now due to some hardware problems. The containers (I used Bestcrypt early 2000) have been moving from hd to hd, from computer to computer.. always in that silly ATI folder.
Nowadays, i don't even own an ATI card anymore... I knew the program would delete all files related to ATI, but i did not expect it just to wipe everything which came close.

Of course it is my fault that i stored the truecrypt drives there. But i think soft which costs money should be a little more careful when it is doing things like this. So I still think driver cleaner should have checked the contents of that dir.

I always was very careful with the data. Made backups, etc. But i never thought it would happen like this.

O well. :-)

Veridian3

OK, i am going to insert 3 pictures here... they explain how any person who read the instructions could avoid this problem.

1) Is the Warning as the program loads that you should follow the instructions
2) Is part of the instructions that state the program has a backup feature which keeps a copy of the files it deletes... if you want it to do that
3) Is the actual screen where you can choose to back up Files and/or Directories

If you had followed the instructions there would not be a problem, the software worked exactly as it was designed to.

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macbiter

Shame you edited it !

You have absolutely no backups of files over 10 years apart from a current folder on a single HD? What were the problems? DVD drive failures? all the usb ports not working for flash drive backups? networking not active for copying to other drives or NAS systems?

Well I guess this is a painful lesson you learned, in that you never keep files in a folder which is meant to house an installer for graphics drivers!

You miss the point. It wipes the driver folders intentionally, there are at least 3 warnings which veridian detailed above. I actually thought it was foolproof until tonight ! Why would you be using an ATI folder for files over a period of 10 years? you have an nvidia card now and you cleaned all drivers even ATI ones? why exactly where you using the program?

Why would it check that folder for email, documents and other random compressed files? those could easily belong to new ATI drivers. I dont think you can feasibly expect the creators to analyse the thousands of individual files then "ignore" everything else. What would happen if ATI changed the temporary installation folder files on the newest driver and someone used the program between this newest driver change and the developers updating it? Theroetically Drivercleaner would remove all the files from a previous configuration and miss other Dlls and data or cab files. Surely if you think logically on this it would be better for the end user (you in this case) to read the alerts above before blindly clicking "yes" to everything?

All this is irrelevant anyway, its a little like storing files in the wastebasket and wondering one day why something removed them. Its good housekeeping, which is exactly what this program was doing. I know a mate of mine who actually has 15 driver installations in that ATI folder and didn't even know they were there! ATI don't automatically remove temporary files after installing the actual drivers so he was losing over 1.5GB of storage with driver files he didnt even need !

Great so revert to those backups !

chris9

Actually, there were only a few files there. Cause they were Truecrypt containers. (virtual encrypted disks) Reason why is cause the backup disks died a while ago due to a power failure.

Veridian3

I guess that proves that you should always keep a backup, even if it is just at another location on the same disk. Still, as my post earlier showed, if you actually followed the instructions you would not be in this situation.

Good luck getting the files back, and be sure to keep them in a safe place and backed up.

Ninjavega

The only time I've seen people hide things in a system folder (like the ATI folder) is if they were hiding a porn stash.

So yea, he probably knew it was in there and didn't want anyone else to know about it.

Than one day he tries to clean up his drivers and bam, bye bye hidden porn stash.