Hi,

A folder in my wife's computer containing photos worth of a week work simply vanished from the PC (windows vista home premium). I've been searching throughout the internet but despite several similar problems being reported it's being hard to find a solution.

The folder was not deleted, simply vanished. I've used several data recovery software without any result since none of the images come up under any recover, as well restoring the PC to a previous point.

I'm lost as to what I can do.

Does anyone know about this problem, or have a suggestion?

Thanks.

Please never install any application, save image file, write any information or recover deleted files on the same logical disk where the deleted files are located. If you have one HD and one logical partition only, please visit FAQ section section to find our technical staff recommendations.

I haven't experienced an issue like you described. However when I accidentally formatted a hard drive I was able to restore most of the drive's files afterwards with this software:

http://www.data-recovery-software.net/Data_Recovery_Download.shtml#demo

Try the demo to see if the full version can recover the files. Hope it helps.

System restore won't do anything besides changing settings in windows. Files on the drive are not affected.

Thanks, but the program didn't recover the files. The several ones I've used only got one image. No trace of the others.

The problem is that they were not deleted. I think windows somehow "lost" the knowledge that they were there, so they are not registered anywhere has having even existed and the recover programs don't detect them.

Maybe this is a stupid question (but when I'm desperate, I'll try anything...).  Could it have somehow become a 'hidden folder'?  Not sure how you view hidden files and folders in Vista, but it might be worth a try.

Maybe this is a stupid question (but when I'm desperate, I'll try anything...).  Could it have somehow become a 'hidden folder'?  Not sure how you view hidden files and folders in Vista, but it might be worth a try.

From explorer, click Tools (if you can't see tools, the left alt key will make it visible), then Folder options - click the view tab and check Show hidden files and folders.  A long shot but I like your thinking. 

I use and recommend "PC Inspector File Recovery", but even that doesn't always find lost files.
What I wanted to say to you, is always run your recovery program as "administrator" - that makes all the difference between success and failure as far as the above mentioned program is concerned; maybe it will help you too.

I'll give it a try, but I've run some recovery programs a administrator too and only one image was found.

Not even from microsoft support I've heard a thing yet...

In my day job as IT support, we frequently have users claiming to have had files or folders that have "disappeared".

The most common cause is that someone got a bit over enthusiastic when clicking and moving the mouse, and accidentally moved the folder into another folder nearby (which is the default action for click and drag).

Have you tried a search of the whole disk for the folder name or just for JPGs?

That was my initial thought, since it has happened to me, but unfortunately no. We've searched the whole computer with a partial name of the missing files and a full name of just one and none came up.

Gannet77 is right, the reason is usually an accidental drag/drop.  The only other possibility is a failing hard drive - not likely.

Use the Windows 'Search' function to scan your entire hard driver for .jpg files.  Right-click on an empty spot on your desktop and push F3 to bring it up. Click the arrow next to "Advanced Search" at the right of the toolbar.  Select "Local Disk (C:)"  as Location; enter "*.jpg" as Name; click the Search button.  It will take a while, but if your photos are still on the drive, this will find them.

This might be a weird idea, but did you ever see (included thumbs generation) the images on your PC with the cam disconnected? You might not have hard-copied the files but just the shortcuts to the cam files. In that case, just reconnect your cam (hopefully with the memory card not yet formatted) and your folder might magically reappear.

I had exactly the same scenario once with a stand-alone USB disk.

Hi,

Maybe I wasn't clear at the beginning but it wasn't the RAW originals to get lost, it's been the jpg's with all the processing work on them. If it were the RAW files, that would have been a catastrophe!

Gannet77 is right, the reason is usually an accidental drag/drop.  The only other possibility is a failing hard drive - not likely.

Use the Windows 'Search' function to scan your entire hard driver for .jpg files.  Right-click on an empty spot on your desktop and push F3 to bring it up. Click the arrow next to "Advanced Search" at the right of the toolbar.  Select "Local Disk (C:)"  as Location; enter "*.jpg" as Name; click the Search button.  It will take a while, but if your photos are still on the drive, this will find them.

Hi,

I've used several search programs, some much better than the one windows tool, and none discovered the jpg images, although they found the raw files which had the same name.

Unfortunately it may be a drive failing. Or just a windows problem, as many have reported similar problems in web forums, but at this moment with little information on a solution.

I would like to thank to all for your help.

The last attempt was to reinstall a full system image on drive C made some months ago, to see if it would "re-map" the drives D and E and make the files appear. Unfortunately it did not work too.

At this moment my wife decided to redo all the work considering the images lost.

Again, thanks for all your help. If anything comes up I'll post the solution so it may be of use in the future.

 

copy the files from your backup.

 

The most common cause is that someone got a bit over enthusiastic when clicking and moving the mouse, and accidentally moved the folder into another folder nearby (which is the default action for click and drag).

I've done that more times than I wish to remember. 

Quote from: stockastic on November 16, 2011, 21:04

Gannet77 is right, the reason is usually an accidental drag/drop.  The only other possibility is a failing hard drive - not likely.

Use the Windows 'Search' function to scan your entire hard driver for .jpg files.  Right-click on an empty spot on your desktop and push F3 to bring it up. Click the arrow next to "Advanced Search" at the right of the toolbar.  Select "Local Disk (C:)"  as Location; enter "*.jpg" as Name; click the Search button.  It will take a while, but if your photos are still on the drive, this will find them.

Hi,

I've used several search programs, some much better than the one windows tool, and none discovered the jpg images, although they found the raw files which had the same name.

Unfortunately it may be a drive failing. Or just a windows problem, as many have reported similar problems in web forums, but at this moment with little information on a solution.

I'm a software engineer and have worked on Windows applications since the mid 90s.   I never once saw Windows 'lose' a file all on its own, or heard of such a case, unless the hard drive was failing.  The file system management code in Windows is now decades old, is running high-volume mission-critical applications all over the world, and can be assumed to be bulletproof.  The only possiblities are user error and hard drive failure.

If you actually lost some files, you need to stop using that computer now, and run a disk integrity check right away, because drive failure is progressive, not a one-time thing.  If you continue to use it, and the magnetic media is losing integrity, you will lose more data.

Quote from: YadaYadaYada on November 17, 2011, 21:08

Just copy the files from your backup.

The right time to do a backup is an hour before your HD crashes. Before that time, backups are just a waste of time. 

Once a day for new pictures when I turn it off nothing else.