Lots of files disappeared from computer?

lily_the_pink

Went to sort some photos out today and ALL my photos have disappeared (most are backed up one way or the other but I am still gutted) and ALL my music has also gone. Any ideas?

I have an antivirus and firewall but could this be a virus as as far as I am aware noone has deleted?

Or could it be something wrong with harddisc on computer?

albertross_2

Are they in the recycle bin, try chkdsk c: /F /R

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

http://safety.live.com/site/en-gb/default.htm

https://www.windowsupdate.com

garcia

Give this a try:

http://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/

Pitty_Fool

Did you shut the pc down incorrectly?
You could try do a system restore back to the day before it happened.

You can do a System Restore by clicking the Start button ---> Programs --> Accessories ----> System ---> System restore.

Poppycat

I had same problem yesterday. I took some photos late May and only just released they have gone. I keep photos in d:my documents/my pictures/day out to xxxx etc etc so there in sub folders all photos I take for different occasions (other photos are fine)

All I can say is I must have deleted them by accident. I managed to recovery some of them on CF card, but lost 2/3rd using a recovery program.

I checked via undelete program (tuneup utilities 2006) but I did a defrag last week so fear they are lost

System restore wouldnt work for me as I turn it off accept c drive and photos are on D drive.

John_Gray

System restore does what the name suggests -- restores the operating system files. Not user-created ones, which you have to retrieve from wherever you backed them up...

John

impy78

There isn't way they could have been changed to hidden folders, accidentally?

lily_the_pink

thanks for the replies - recovered a miserly 4 photos from the camera card (better than nothing though). It is only in effect 6 months of photos - and I have at least hard copies of most of the ones I actually liked which is something ( there are various other on the kodak and panasonic sites so will see if I can get a CD rom with them on - at a cost I suppose). Will have a go with PC recovery but not holding out much hope as I have done a defrag since the date I suspect they disappeared. This has never happened to me before (in 15 years of regularly using a computer so I guess I have been lucky). Will start being more methodical in backing up document and system (I think the system crashed about a month ago which is when I suspect the documents disappeared).

garcia

One last possibility (its a long shot but what the hey) is that somehow you are logged on as a different user. Try going into C:\Documents and settings and see if you can find the directories of other users and whether your pictures are there.

Dead_Eye_Jones

When I lose files its often that ive just moved them someone by mistake, an accidental drag and drop perhaps? Search the drive for all jpg/bmp or whatever file format you used... (who knows what you might find )!

arghhhh I know this isnt helpful now but please please people - do backups of all important files. I hate being in this position where lets face it, things look pretty bleak, and apart from the usual advice to try some file recovery software, there is little else that can be done.

I hope you have some success in retrieving the files . Its always sad to see people learn the lesson the hard way, but im sure you'll be much more careful in future - I just hope others learn from this, please backup your files, the worst will happen eventually!

GL !

lily_the_pink

I have always been in the past fairly methodical (back up every few months) but will now schedule on a monthly basis - plus will always save photos to cdrom as well as hd.

The music also has vanished without trace - though most of this is on my MP3 player or on CD.

To be honest, yesterday I was in shock for half of the day. Luckily the bulk of the photos - and the ones I am most bothered about - are all copied onto various CDRoms.