[MrOleScott]

This happened at the first of the year but it was a gradual undertaking. As if thhey disappeared every few weeks or months. No Virus's showed up on a scan. No applications that I know of to erase them---like Desktop Cleaner, etc. So I changed OS from XP Home to XP Proff.. Things have been going well for 4mo. Now the only folder that is left is dated 9-12-08. The only one left out of 81 folders. I went to System Restore & it shows nothing to back up to !!!! My system shows that it is working plus Pages have told me that they were creating a Restore Point. There are not any Restore Points at ALL !!!!

Someone please help me find my problem or tell me how to find my lost folders.

Thank you for listening,

MrOleScott

[LincolnSpector]

Hi, Mr. Scott.
I wouldn't expect a Restore Point to help, here. System Restore protects Windows and your applications, not your data.

There are a number of programs for restoring deleted and missing files, some of which specialize in .jpgs. Unfortunately, if this has been happening slowly over a period of four months, I wouldn't count on your getting everything. Every time you write to your hard drive, you lower the chance of recovering anything.

If you want to try some, Undelete Plus is very good, and free. You can download it to a flash drive and run it from there, so as not to write on your hard drive. Iolo's Search and Recover costs $30, but I think there's a free demo version that will show you what's recoverable, so you know if it's worth buying. I don't know off-hand if you can run it off a flash drive.

As to what's happening, I haven't the faintest idea. I'm not inclined to suspect malware, but in this case that may be correct. You didn't mention what program you scanned your hard drive with, but try scanning your hrd drive with something else. See Scan for Malware With Online Tools for suggestions.

Finally, and excuse the lecture, but you wouldn't have lost your pictures if you had backed them up. Backing up data is absolutely essential, because things like this happen.

Lincoln

[coastie65]

Hi, Lincoln brought up a good point about backing up your files so I won't add to that. Undeleter Plus is a very good utility as I have that installed in here. I can't imagine why your files didappeared, but have a few thoughts. It is possible that the folders were set up as Temp files. It this is the case and you ran the Disk Clean utility in tools, then you could very well have deleted those files, as that utility will clean out temp files, which, in most cases, is safe to do. I usually check to see what the temp files are first though. coastie65

[MrOleScott]

Hello Lincoln, I just want to thank you for the suggestion on using Undelete Plus. I was able to retrieve most of my pics. I had them on another h/drive just for pics, videos & personnal stuff. I am still confused on why it just happens to delete these folders. They are not temp folders, as I went back to properties & checked. I do not use Disc Cleanup & I went online & had a site do a Virus check & one other do a Malware check. All of these have come up mt handed. When this first started happening 1 year ago or so, I completely erased the h/drive & installed XP Pro from XP Home. That worked for awhile then bang ----here I go again. I am totally flustered. I have been putting my new pics on an external h/drive & then I shut it off when I am through. I have a couple of pics left on my other h/drive that I am watching to see when they get deleted or whatever.

Thanks again for the help & also Coastie helped too.

MrOleScott

[LincolnSpector]

Hi, Ole.

Glad you got most of the pictures back.

Lincoln

[coastie65]

Hi Ole, To echo what Lincoln said, i'm glad you were able to retrieve your pictures. I failed to mention, that depending on the number of deleted files, undelete plus can get a bit tedious. As I said, I have it in here as I am prone to getting carried away and deleting things I probably shouldn't have. :D coastie