invalid directory cant open files

Hi
I am trying to recover some photographs for a friend. She says she had a folder named graduation in her documents which contained her sons graduation photos, but it has disappeared through nothing she remembers doing. When i put graduation into the search box i find the photos but when trying to open I get the message invalid directory. I have tried the following.
Full scan of malware bytes found some trojan about explorer misname or similar. Still cant open photos. chkdsk /r. still cant open photos. sfc /scannow, no luck. user access changed, no luck. Ran recuva and found some deleted photos but not the ones in question. took out the hard drive and connected it to my laptop externally but cant even find photos now. Any suggestions please.
Ta
Steve

 

Most probably malware problem.

Please read this & post in Malware and Virus Removal.

 

If all of the above fail, if the photos are .jpec do a .jpec search to find them.
I know it can be a long and tedious project, but then, it depends on how desperate one is.

 

Steve (spankydata), I'm wondering if the original photo's were stored in a library on a removable device (maybe camera) and that device is no longer connected?