It looks like files may have been deleted from My Documents. What do I do?

Last night I found My Documents full of holes, giving the appearance that files have been deleted. (See the attached screenshot.)

This is all the more concerning because of a recent episode in which it is completely clear that some images were deleted from My Pictures. http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=280456 In that case there was never any sign of the deleted images in the Recycle Bin or anywhere else.

I checked Undeluxe. It doesn't appear to have what I want.

I tried System Restore, and have come up with nothing so far. http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=281138

I tried Google Drive, which is a mess for me now. (In my second week of having it, Google Drive put itself on my hard drive so that I have an entirely gratuitous and unwelcome duplication of My Documents on My Documents. That doubled the size of My Documents and cut my hard drive free space by a third. I am now getting from Google Drive's tray icon the message : "You have 4.18 GB in your trash at Google Drive. Please empty the trash or purchase more storage." I have checked, and apart from Google Drive itself, my My Documents is still under the 15GB free limit of Google Drive. I think I will move my My Documents backup from Google Drive to Webroot backup.) Google Drive does not seem to offer any help. I counted 366 documents last night in My Documents (C). But the My Documents in Google Drive has only 355 documents.

So I have five things in mind.

1. Most importantly now, how can I get any missing files back?

2. What could have caused this?

Is Windows Explorer the culprit? Lately it has been behaving badly, crashing a lot and leaving me with no taskbar.

I did use CCleaner Sunday night, but I did not use Drive Wiper. I also used Advanced Uninstaller Pro's temporary files and cookie cleaners, ATF Cleaner, Wise Care System Slimming, Ashampoo WinOptimizer Drive Cleaner, Advanced System Care Pro Iobit Disk Cleaner, and Kingsoft PC Doctor Junk Cleaner. On none of these did I leave all settings checked; rather I scrutinized them carefully. (By the way, all of them except ATF Cleaner removed a meaningful amount from my hard drive.)

Could junk file cleaning somehow have attacked my My Documents folder? I surely would not leave checked anything that would look like it would get into that folder.

3. How can I prevent anything else like this happening again?

Is there a better program to use to protect files than Undeluxe?

Can I move my files somewhere away from Windows Explorer where they will be safer?

Are there settings in junk file cleaning I must avoid to prevent an assault on my useful files?

I don't know much about backup and I know even less about imaging. Advice in these realms and links to good articles would be appreciated. I plan to eventually get an internal hard drive + enclosure to back up my system. However I'm not ready to do that now because I haven't decided whether my new computer should be a laptop or a desktop. My first priority is getting multiple redundant remote backups, such as with Buddy Backup, when I have time.

4. Is it possible that no files were really deleted, and that for some mysterious reason Windows made the mess that you see on the screenshot without deleting anything? With as many documents I have, it's pretty hard to remember just what was there so as to be able to know for sure that something is gone. That question leads to :

5. What program or technique would enable me to know for sure whether files have been lost? It seems like it would be very good to have something that would keep count of the files in every one of my data folders. Then I would need something that would allow me to revert in time for comparison purposes.



Windows XP
Home Edition
Version 2002
32-bit
Service Pack 3

Dell DIMENSION DIM2400
Intel(R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.66GHz
x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9
2.05 GB of RAM
Graphics Card: Intel(R) 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV
Graphics Controller, 64 Mb
Hard Drive Size 114.4GB
Free Space was 35.8GB; now 22.0GB because after backing up My Documents on Google Drive, Google Drive has duplicated the whole darn thing on my hard drive
Motherboard: Dell Computer Corp., 0G1548
Antivirus : Webroot Internet Security

 

Here's the best advice I can give you to prevent this from happening in the future:

If you purchase a Seagate, WD or Maxtor, you can get the Acronis Trueimage software (free) and make an image of your OS and

put it on your external hdd.

If you need to recover your OS ( including programs, updates, etc) you can do it with a few clicks.

You can also use Easeus for free and any hdd will work.



Seagate - http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/discwizard/

WD - http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&wdc_lang=en

Easeus - http://www.filehorse.com/download-easeus-todo-backup/

Download this program: http://www.filehorse.com/download-everything-32/

Type in the name and if it is there, this will find it.

Be careful to choose "custom" if offered and uncheck any crapware it wants to add. On next pages, any other junk, you can Decline and continue the downlload.

 

conceptualclarity...

Looks like the screenshot didn't upload, or at least I don't see it in your post cc...

You deserve combat medals the way you are using all those cleaners. Seriously, that is an intense barrage you're putting on yourself using that many different ones. Just want to say...the entire concept of cleaning a hard drive is basically still in its infancy. The cleaners are getting better, but they're a long way from trustworthy. You scrutinized which is important, but it's easy to make the kind of mistake that could cause what you see in your My Documents with a cleaner...not sure if that's the source of the problem mind you, but I've read of problems on that scale.

One thing to note about this situation with cleaners. Without losing anything, you can pick one, stick with the simplest known safe settings, and only run it to automatically remove temporary internet files. It may seem that it's difficult to manage the amount of info on your data without running all of them and then you may become fearful that you will run out of hard drive space. I know that situation. You don't have to worry about that. When you get your PC where you want it down the road, you will see what I mean. Hard drive space will stabilize. Honestly, the thing that makes this most difficult to achieve is testing a ton of different programs. For sure I wouldn't do that kind of testing on the new PC you are discussing getting. I would keep it on the one you have now...

Couple of questions:

1. Are your files present on Google Drive?
2. With the files gone, is your hard drive still using the same amount of space as before this problem?

Save your backup and imaging questions for another thread I would say->to avoid confusion. With that the most important thing is going to be to find one program and stick with it. Then you can use the program's forum for support...

If you can, please try the screenshot again...

 

Just to clarify: System Restore will not restore any user programs or user data, just system files and data.

 

Unfortunately I can't at the moment remember what are the names of the files that may have been lost. I need some sort of indexing mechanism that I can make use of in a situation like this.

Please tell me more if you can. I have run these cleaners in the past without apparent problems, except one that is new for me, a shareware from a giveaway day : Ashampoo WinOptimizer Drive Cleaner.

I still have strong suspicions of Explorer itself in light of the deletions from My Pictures which are referred to in the thread linked to.

As I noted, the Google Drive version of My Documents actually had 11 fewer files than the C version of My Documents which appeared ravaged. So I assume not. Thanks for all the help, Google. rolleyes I can offer no explanation for the discrepancy.

It was still using as much. The files in my My Documents are generally a lot smaller than programs, and it would take a huge portion of them to make a difference.

You are meaning for disk cleaning?

Bad tidings, but thanks for informing me.

Here we go.

 

Conceptualclarity, are you certain there are documents or files missing? As you pointed out in your OP, your screen shot gives the "appearance that files have been deleted."

Humor me, right click on a blank area of that folder and check to make sure that one or more setting(s) under the "Group by" sub context menu isn't/aren't selected. If there are any selected, un-select them and then "Refresh" the view.

Also under the right-click context menu, you might try temporaraily changing the "View" to "Details".

 

PSCO2007 mentioned "Everything" as a good download. I may be mistaken, but I think you can create a list of the files in a directory or on a drive using the program. I have done it before with some program, and I think it was Everything, just can't remember. I don't have access to my main PC to check currently due a faulty power supply, for which I am awaiting the arrival of a replacement...

One way you might be able to keep track of files is to right click on your My Documents folder and select Properties. Then from that menu type the number of files and the total disk space being used by the folder in a Notepad. You can do this from time to time or if you suspect you may have lost some files...

I think Plastidust might be on the right track. Maybe all your files are there. However, reading up on GDrive, I have seen a good sized number of difficulties associated with the service. Might be wrong, but I think one I read was someone who lost all his files. Something like this:

http://www.dresan.com/blog/?p=2300

or this

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2013/09/23/driven-to-despair-by-google-drive/

If you would like to Google search the topic, try:

Google Drive files lost
Google Drive files missing
Google Drive files deleted

 

This program will tell you what is on the drive : http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/

Click Scan and select the drive you want info about.

 

Here's a pic to help you.

Click SCAN and select the drive you want info about.

 

Thanks to all of you. I will respond to the other things you have posted.

Thank you very much for this, AtlBo. I cannot extricate myself from Google Drive quickly enough. I'll be working on that tonight. I have no feel yet for backup, but I must pull out of it for the first time.

 

conceptualclarity...

Did you ever determine if you lost any files?

On Google Drive...I haven't tried the service. I use DropBox to host a handfull of files for use on blogs or when I post a picture someplace. If you feel you should change, by all means do. Perhaps you could Google this:

Best Cloud Storage

I noticed several ranking lists in the above Google return just now when I took a look...

Just checked "Everything" to see if you could create an index of the files and folders in a specific folder, and you can. Install the program, making sure there is a check in the "Shell context menus" check box. Allow Everything to index the main drive (automatic). Next locate the folder you want to index in the main drive index list (ex. My Documents). Right click on the folder and select Search Everything. This will open another Everything window containing only the contents of the specific folder. Now click File->Export and name the file the name of the folder for which you are creating the index...something like "My Documents Index" for My Documents. Save the file to a good place where you can easily find it. You can then create indexes for any of the subfolders and save them in the same way. If you suspect a missing files or folders problem, create another index of the same folder(s) you have lists for already and then compare the lists...

 

Sorry-:-o

Sometimes, in haste to help someone, MG doesn't always show up in Google searches,