I have lost My Pictures folder!

[The Everlasting]

Yesterday I noticed that My Pictures folder has just gone/vanished,the folder was about 10Gb in size,and had thousand of photos in it.

I have tried system restore/undelete programs,and nothing worked. I did a scan with avg,and it picked up some viruses,but they werent really viruses,as I had some Battlefield 2 trainers on the computer,which avg can mistake for a virus.

The only other explanation I can think of is that my computer may have been hacked?

I really want those pictures back,even if it means I need to pay a professional IT person to do it....

Thoughts?

[Virago]

Has it actually gone, or just been moved accidentally? It's easy to accidentally drag 'n' drop a folder into another folder.

[BoristheBiter]

Yesterday I noticed that My Pictures folder has just gone/vanished,the folder was about 10Gb in size,and had thousand of photos in it.

I have tried system restore/undelete programs,and nothing worked. I did a scan with avg,and it picked up some viruses,but they werent really viruses,as I had some Battlefield 2 trainers on the computer,which avg can mistake for a virus.

The only other explanation I can think of is that my computer may have been hacked?

I really want those pictures back,even if it means I need to pay a professional IT person to do it....

Thoughts?

if you know one of the photo names just run a search for it. if found it will tell you where it is .

[steve_t]

It's probably just been moved. Hope you find it. Go to "My Computer", press F3, search for *.jpg

After you find them, back them up!

[AllanB]

10gig


That's a serious porn collection :yes:

Maybe it's time to let it go ........

[steve_t]

10gig


That's a serious porn collection :yes:

Maybe it's time to let it go ........

That's crazy talk :innocent:

[The Everlasting]

It's probably just been moved. Hope you find it. Go to "My Computer", press F3, search for *.jpg

After you find them, back them up!


Yeah I tried searching for individual files before,and just did a search for all pictures on my computer,they didn't show up.

[The Everlasting]

10gig


That's a serious porn collection :yes:

Maybe it's time to let it go ........


Sadly it wasn't porn. :p

I had pictures and videos in there from the last 15 years of various trips etc,most of them taken by myself.

[steve_t]

And not in your recycle bin, right?

[The Everlasting]

Nope,not in there either.

[BoristheBiter]

Nope,not in there either.

tried all drives? C: D: etc

[Gremlin]

Has the overall free space on drive C increased?

10GB should be noticeable space wise. I came across a virus a week or two ago that hid all the folders under My Documents, and weirdly enough, if you went through My Computer, C, Documents and Settings (or Users) etc, then you could see the folder.

If its truly gone, you need to stop changing anything on the computer, and turn to GetDataBack or something like that. Data recovery is highly successful if the data hasn't been overwritten by new data. When deleted, data is not deleted until it's overwritten.

[superman]

Nope,not in there either.

What OS you using? There is an option which shows and hides the My Pictures folder, however searching should show the files, if you were searching hidden files also.

[EJK]

Has the overall free space on drive C increased?

10GB should be noticeable space wise. I came across a virus a week or two ago that hid all the folders under My Documents, and weirdly enough, if you went through My Computer, C, Documents and Settings (or Users) etc, then you could see the folder.

If its truly gone, you need to stop changing anything on the computer, and turn to GetDataBack or something like that. Data recovery is highly successful if the data hasn't been overwritten by new data. When deleted, data is not deleted until it's overwritten.

+1

Listen to this guy.

[steve_t]

Strap your computer to your bike and go to Gremlin's house :innocent:
I'm sure he'll sort you out for a reasonable price :niceone:

[steve_t]

I came across a virus a week or two ago that hid all the folders under My Documents, and weirdly enough, if you went through My Computer, C, Documents and Settings (or Users) etc, then you could see the folder.


What a random virus :blink: Did it do any damage? Or did you just fix it by changing the folder attributes (after removing the virus)?

[Gremlin]

What a random virus :blink: Did it do any damage? Or did you just fix it by changing the folder attributes (after removing the virus)?
After removing the virus, going direct to My Docs still didn't show the folder. Drilling through to My Docs via My Computer, C etc, showed the folder. Very odd, hadn't seen it before, but it was a quick favour. I put a different shortcut to it, for now, advising it needed further looking at (except the guy was most grateful that all the baby pics and other *insert priceless valuables* weren't gone, as he thought. His wife was probably quite happy too.

The virus was reasonably run of the mill, but with warnings I hadn't seen yet. It said the HDD had corrupt sectors, was on the verge of failure, there wasn't enough memory (when there was plenty available etc). I presume it was in the early stages, as it was only executables on startup and copying itself elsewhere in the process.

[Winston001]

Go to Start -> Search -> Pictures -> Tick Pictures and don't enter any names -> Search

Unless .jpg etc is now somehow hidden there has to be something there even just the Windows logos.

[onearmedbandit]

You didn't by chance set the folder to 'hidden'? If you did, and you have show hidden files off, then a search will not show any result.

[Mom]

Go to your nearest Dicks Smith or similar and buy your self an external hard drive. They are cheap as chips. When you find your pics copy them to the external hard drive and unplug it.

[Usarka]

Go to your nearest Dicks Smith or similar and buy your self an external hard drive. They are cheap as chips. When you find your pics copy them to the external hard drive and unplug it.

Been meaning to do that for ages, and I almost brought one of those on the way home today. If my computer crashes before I get one I'll be rig

[Gremlin]

Just as a side note, don't rely on the external drive completely either.

Use the external to keep a copy of what's on your computer. The drive in the external unit is much the same as the one inside your computer.

[steve_t]

Just as a side note, don't rely on the external drive completely either.

Use the external to keep a copy of what's on your computer. The drive in the external unit is much the same as the one inside your computer.

And anyone who has a sole copy of anything stored on a USB flash drive, copy it to somewhere else too! Those things are easy to lose and seem to fail and the most inopportune times. DAMHIK :facepalm:

[The Everlasting]

Has the overall free space on drive C increased?

10GB should be noticeable space wise. I came across a virus a week or two ago that hid all the folders under My Documents, and weirdly enough, if you went through My Computer, C, Documents and Settings (or Users) etc, then you could see the folder.

If its truly gone, you need to stop changing anything on the computer, and turn to GetDataBack or something like that. Data recovery is highly successful if the data hasn't been overwritten by new data. When deleted, data is not deleted until it's overwritten.

I don't know for how long they have been gone,could have been weeks,only noticed on sunday when I wanted to look at a picture.

I'm not sure if the overall space on the disk has increased,as I haven't been keeping an eye on it.
Some other people suggested there may be an error with the harddrive,so I'm currently checking it over.

[SMOKEU]

What you really should be doing is having a RAID1 setup or use disk mirroring software for the redundancy, then have another drive with backups that is kept separate from your computer in a hidden place in case of fire, theft or an act of god.

Windows 7 Pro and Ultimate have a tool which can setup a mirrored volume if you don't want to setup RAID.

That way all your important data is on 3 disks.