Question What happened to my data??? Edit: Wah? Found it...

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,402
8,038
136
Edit: OK, so I found my data. Somehow C:\Data was found under C:\Brother\Data. Brother is to support my Brother printer. How it got moved there is beyond me. So, my desktop can find it's photos, but my Visual FoxPro still doesn't work properly. It's screen won't show.
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So, a few hours ago my data app stopped working. Just wouldn't show up when I started it. I posted at www.tek-tips.com for help but no reply there yet. So I reinstall the app (Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9.0) and problems persist.

In the process of this my wallpaper turned from rotating JPGs to a checkerboard blue.

Most concerning is that my data on the PC has all disappeared!!!

It's Windows 10 64bit laptop. The data was all under C:\data. That folder isn't there! I have no idea what could have screwed things up. Now, I keep my important data on my NAS, and I have no reason to believe anything has happened to that! But where is my local data??? What could have deleted it, or made it opaque to me?

Now, the only out of usual thing I did today with this machine was run a test on one of my 16GB thumb drives. I used the utility C:\Programs\h2testw_1.4_USB_Test_Utility\h2testw.exe. It's a simple utility that I don't believe you even have to install, you just run the EXE and tell it what drive to analyze and I chose the thumb drive, D:. I interrupted its execution because it was taking too long, by pressing the [Abort] button.

Before discovering that C:\Data and subdirectories was missing I tried to restore order by restoring Windows to a restore point. I only saw one to restore to which had today's date. I went through with that but Visual FoxPro 9.0 would still not open.

The laptop is a Lenovo P1 and around a year old refurb (warranted to April 2022) and has a 256GB SSD.

I do not see my \Data folder in my recycle bin. What do you suggest? Reset the machine to factory defaults (I think I have that option?), and reinstall everything and cross my fingers???
 
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Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,402
8,038
136
Finally got my Visual FoxPro data app working. Why in the world it stopped working is beyond me. I reinstalled it and it still didn't work. Then had to configure it to run with administrator status. I never had to do that before and I've installed it probably 25 times. Now it works. What screwed it up I figure I'll never know... or what moved my data folder. But it's working now and I can go to sleep without that hanging over my head. Sigh...
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,402
8,038
136
Did you run a virus scan on your pc? I would, as it's very odd that your folders moved.
Only thing installed is Windows Defender, installed by default with Windows 10. I have a couple freebies, Malwarebytes, and IIRC (maybe not) CCleaner. What do you think? Ask Windows Defender to do a scan NOW? It's always reported everything AOK in a little box in bottom right corner... sporadically, unpredictably.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,402
8,038
136
So, just went into Windows Security, and it had one thing I could see, "Quick scan" I ran that and a minute later it said "no threats were found." Hmm. Maybe it has a deep scan option?
 

Muadib

Lifer
May 30, 2000
17,914
838
126
So, just went into Windows Security, and it had one thing I could see, "Quick scan" I ran that and a minute later it said "no threats were found." Hmm. Maybe it has a deep scan option?
I've been a fan of Norton until recently. I'm using Bitdefender now. They have a 30 days free version.
That was even faster, maybe 45 seconds. MWB said:

Awesome! No threats were detected.
Cool! Hopefully that will do it.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,402
8,038
136
I've been a fan of Norton until recently. I'm using Bitdefender now. They have a 30 days free version.

Cool! Hopefully that will do it.
ATM, the PC is acting "normally." Yesterday was a clusterf**k. I really need Visual FoxPro to work, my data is accessed and changed by it. I have the data on my NAS, so accessible by all my PCs, but this is my 97% PC
 

mxnerd

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2007
6,799
1,100
126
So that c:\data folder reappeared? But you kept mentioning NAS.

So exactly where is that data stored accessed by Visual Fox Pro. C:\Data or a folder on NAS?

==

OK. Just saw you edited your first post that you found it.
 
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serpretetsky

Senior member
Jan 7, 2012
642
26
101
It isn't all that hard to accidentally drag and drop one folder into another in File Explorer. I've done it, and perhaps you did too?
This would be my guess. I do this from time to time and usually notice and undo it. It wouldn't surprise me if I've done it a couple times and did not notice.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,402
8,038
136
It isn't all that hard to accidentally drag and drop one folder into another in File Explorer. I've done it, and perhaps you did too?
It's conceivable, certainly... especially in light of the fact that it's kinda hard to imagine it happening otherwise. Guess we'll never know the answer to that one. Anyway, glad I had Agent Ransack installed. I searched on a specific file and found it... where it wasn't supposed to be and took it from there.
 

Muse

Lifer
Jul 11, 2001
37,402
8,038
136
So that c:\data folder reappeared? But you kept mentioning NAS.

So exactly where is that data stored accessed by Visual Fox Pro. C:\Data or a folder on NAS?

==

OK. Just saw you edited your first post that you found it.
Yeah, Visual Foxpro accesses the data on the NAS by default (having working data on the NAS allows me to access and change it from any of my local machines). However I keep a copy on the local machine. I have a shortcut on my desktop to copy all changed data on the NAS down to the local machine and I run that once in a while. It serves as a backup in case something gets screwed up on the NAS (I also have off site backups, but they get sporadically updated, not really regularly). Also, this local machine (laptop) can travel with me and when that happens, Visual FoxPro accesses the local data.

So, I might not have noticed that the local data wasn't where it was supposed to be for a long time. It so happened that I decided to run that batch file yesterday, and I believe because Visual FoxPro wasn't working. On a lark, I decided to update the local data and behold, the DOS window threw errors that the folder didn't exist! WTF? Indeed it did not. C:\data did not exist!