Please Help Solve this Mystery. All Files Under My Documents Have VANISHED!

[blinkstar]

Today I noticed that I could no longer load up my saved games for Oblivion. Started poking around and discovered that ALL the content under Documents and Settings\My User Name\My Documents is GONE. The folder structure is intact, but the folders are all empty ...

What could have caused this? I did a simple test of my hard drive and found no problems. Just ran AVG and it found no viruses ...

Please advise!

 

[corkyg]

Use Explorer. What you may have done is merely lost the link in My Documents.

 

[Markbnj]

He said he went to Docs and Settings, so I assume right to C:. Wierd problem. Same user account, right? Stupid question, I know, but you have to cover it early.

 

[gsellis]

Actually, try viewing the folder in a CMD prompt. CD to Docs and settings, CD to your user ID. Make sure that there are not multiple users with similar names (you should know if there are).

DIR *.*
DIR *.* /AH

Did the get hidden? Permissions changed on them? Are they in the Recycle Bin?

They might be gone, but be sure first.

 

[daveshel]

Could you have somehow ended up in another branch of the Documents and Settings tree? Like through a domain disjoin/rejoin or something?

 

[bruceb]

That happened to me a few days back. Turns out all it was, was somehow the contents of the My Docs
folder got moved to another folder under Docs & Settings ...took awhile to find it, but thankfully all my
work files were still intact.

 

[blinkstar]

Originally posted by: Markbnj
He said he went to Docs and Settings, so I assume right to C:. Wierd problem. Same user account, right? Stupid question, I know, but you have to cover it early.

Yes, same account, and I did look directly under C, as well as search for at least one of the files by name, without luck.

 

[blinkstar]

Originally posted by: gsellis
Actually, try viewing the folder in a CMD prompt. CD to Docs and settings, CD to your user ID. Make sure that there are not multiple users with similar names (you should know if there are).

DIR *.*
DIR *.* /AH

Did the get hidden? Permissions changed on them? Are they in the Recycle Bin?

They might be gone, but be sure first.

Hit the CMD prompt and it boots me immediately into Docs and Settings\My User ID. No need to cd\ to the folder--is that odd? I assume that when you type DIR *.*, the "*.*" stands for the name of my individual folder? Tried typing it in just as you wrote it and got back an error message ... Did I do it wrong? And what am I looking for? Sorry, but my software knowledge isn't the greatest ...

EDIT: forgot to add that I did check the recycle bin and sadly, they are not there.

 

[Navid]

Download the free utility TreeSize that gives you the total occupied size of a folder.
http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml
Use it and see what it shows for the folder at the top of the tree.

This is not a solution.
But, it may give you a clue.

 

[blinkstar]

Originally posted by: Navid
Download the free utility TreeSize that gives you the total occupied size of a folder.
http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml
Use it and see what it shows for the folder at the top of the tree.

This is not a solution.
But, it may give you a clue.

Used TreeSize and it tells me that My Documents folder is empty.

I ran chkdsk and it found no errors. I've run several anti viri programs and they've found nothing.


Again I must appeal to the anandtech community for help! Even if I never get my files back, I still want to figure out what on earth happened to them so that it doesn't happen again ...

 

[blinkstar]

Any suggestions on what might have happened, or how to recover the files?

Anyone?

 

[RebateMonger]

What you are seeing is very similar to what you see if your "My Documents" folder gets re-directed elsewhere. If you right-mouse-click on the "My Documents" folder on your desktop (or Start Menu), what is the "Target"?

If the documents really have disappeared, the way to get them back is from your backups. If you don't HAVE backups of your "My Documents" folder, I suggest you start doing so.

 

[blinkstar]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
What you are seeing is very similar to what you see if your "My Documents" folder gets re-directed elsewhere. If you right-mouse-click on the "My Documents" folder on your desktop (or Start Menu), what is the "Target"?

If the documents really have disappeared, the way to get them back is from your backups. If you don't HAVE backups of your "My Documents" folder, I suggest you start doing so.

Are you talking about the shortcut to My Documents? I went to the actual folder, under my c: drive to confirm that the folders were all empty.

In terms of backups, if I had backups, don't you think I would have tried reinstalling them by now?

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: blinkstar
Are you talking about the shortcut to My Documents? I went to the actual folder, under my c: drive to confirm that the folders were all empty.

I'm talking about the Desktop shortcut to "My Documents". That's where document redirection is specified. You already stated that that your "My Documents" folder was empty. See if your documents have been sent somewhere else.

 

[blinkstar]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: blinkstar
Are you talking about the shortcut to My Documents? I went to the actual folder, under my c: drive to confirm that the folders were all empty.

I'm talking about the Desktop shortcut to "My Documents". That's where document redirection is specified. You already stated that that your "My Documents" folder was empty. See if your documents have been sent somewhere else.

Sorry, I misunderstood.

I don't have a Desktop shortcut to "My Documents"--I got rid of it a while ago. Should I bring it back to check the redirection as you say?

 

[blinkstar]

Okay, I restored the My Documents shortcut on the desktop using TweakUI.

But ... prior to this, I tried moving My Documents from Documents and Settings\My User Name\ to Documents and Settings\My User Name\Application Data because that is how it is setup on my laptop and I thought maybe it should be there. (Stupid, I know.)

So now the My Documents shortcut links to that Application Data location, even though the original My Documents folder is still located under Documents and Settings\My User Name\, if that isn't too confusing ...