Lost info in MY folders only!?

Help!! I have just come to my computer to send a list I have in a folder I keep all my day to day business info in. All my letters, invoices,statements in fact anything which I use on a daily basis.
The folder is on the desktop at all times. I also back up to a tape drive as and when to ensure all is ok!! It is not OK!! I have gone to send a list to a customer this morning and there is nothing in any of the folders!! All folders are empty!! The back up folders are empty too!! But when I try to open a file I am getting the correct location comong up just the message saying the item cannot be found at this location!?
On both C: drive and my backup!!
I have installed several updates lately and have always set a restore point fist. These points are also NOT showing up?? I have restored to a date where I know the info was available and it is still not appearing in the folders!!
Anyone any idea's PLEASE??? If I had been silly and opened something and got a virus I could understand it!! But I have no virus or anything?? and it is only my folders which are affected!!?? No-one elses?? Unless of course there is a new "Chris Goddard" virus about??!!

Heres Hoping??

Chris

 

Just a bit of an update really!! I have now discovered that ALL my files for the last 3 years or so have gone away!! If It was a virus I would still be angry but accepting but AVG is doing what it always (Seems?) to do!!
Where can the files dissapear to?? I didn't think they could?! But then again is the earth round or flat?!?
Please somone must have them!! Or know where they are?? I'll pay!!

Oh yes!! I am already!!

Chris

 

Chris - if you know a specific file name, try doing a search for it and searching the entire drive. It is very possible that your user account has gone bad and the information is still on the drive but you aren't seeing it.

When you say the folder is on the desktop, do you mean a shortcut to it or did you have it as a sub-folder to your desktop folder?

 

Hiya Newt!! Yes the folder was a sub-folder to the desktop!! I know, I know!! Thing is I di back it up!! But I now know I backed up the empty folder!!
I have checked with all the methods I know(Which aint many!) to find the files/letters/templates etc. But they have all disapeared without trace!!

Chris

 

Hi Chris

Sorry to hear of your dilemma. Don't know what your OS is, but if XP, the "Find" tool is not very effective. The Folders/file are there, but would appear pointers are lost. I would suggest trying Agent Ransack, a very good disk information locator. If you can not find by file name, try also using "containing text" look up feature. Try to remember a file that contains a very "unique text word" that would be contained in the lost files. Unfortunately, if pointers are lost to files, the more you use the computer, the less chance you will find them.
Good luck.

 

Chris - I agree with Dennis. Agent Ransack is much better than the "search" tool in Windows Explorer.

You mentioned trying a system restore to roll back to a time when all was well. Won't have worked since the XP system restore only keeps track of system files - not your own personal files. You need something like GoBack from Roxio to do that.

If I understand things correctly and you had data stored in a sub-folder of the desktop folder for your user account, you may still be dealing with a corrupt user account and doing the search from another logon would be worth a try.

If not and something bad happened - accidental delete or similar - the data may still be there but not so you can find it using normal methods. To expand a little on what Dennis posted, when you do a normal delete you simply remove the pointer that tells your operating system that a certain file/folder occupies a specific piece of drive space. The file/folder itself isn't touched.

But the space is flagged as free for use and future files can be written over the space. The amount you can recover will depend on how much or how little has been written to that particular piece of drive surface. If little or nothing you can get most or all of the files back. If quite a lot or if you re-arranged things with a defrag, probably not much left.

Take a look Here for some good information about several "undelete" programs you can get that work well with XP.

And for future reference, I'd suggest only placing shortcuts in your desktop folder. It has some strange habits and isn't a good place to store data.