User files vanished but still using space?

[FatRakoon]

This happened to my laptop the other week, and I m,anaged to sort it, but its happened again on my daughters PC but I am unsure what to do.

She was using an SSD for Windows and a HD for the Data and the SSD had Suddenly developed issues and was giving a SMART ERROR

So, I backed all her files onto my PC, and wiped the HD and gave her a nice fresh install of Windows 10

Then, once it was all fully installed and sorted out, I put her HD into my PC ( Via USB Adapter ) and copied her files back onto the HD.

I put her HD back into her PC and then the D: Showed it had nothing on it.

I opened up the Folders and sure enough nothing?

The files I coped were 53GB and sure enough there is 53GB of space beign used, but they are invisible?

WTF?

--

This happened to my own files, but the difference being, that the fiels here are my daughters university stuff for her entire year and so its fairly important to her.

I feel so rotten, but I dont know what the hell I have done wrong? I have done this to hundreds of PCs over the years and never had a worry about it and yet all of a sudden, its happened to me twice in a few weeks?

 

[jpaul]

(you still have the original files though ..)

you created a separate partition D: on her HD, during install to later copy the files too, and,
that partition has nothing in it when viewed from her PC, although when you inspected it from your PC, after the USB copy it looked ok ?

 

[FatRakoon]

I connected her drive to my PC and copied the files to my Desktop.
These were here DOCUMENTS, MUSIC, DOWNLOADS, VIDEOS folders

I wiped her DATA HD and reinstalled Windows onto it. using 100GB of the Disk, and keeping the rest of the disk without a Partition, until I had finished installing, I then made the D: out of the remaining space.
I then attached that drive to my PC vis a USB adapter and moved the files over, into a folder called JESSBAK

I then moved these files from JESSBAK into their relevant fodlers... i.e the DOCUMENTS into the DOCUMENTS FOLDER, the Music into Music and so on.... The files were all there and I saw them all copy over and when it was all done, there they were...

I then put the disk back into her PC and she was unable to see the files?

I think her drive is just dying and that the SSD is also a load of crud.

Thankfully, I gave her a laptop a few weeks back and she has some of her stuff on that, so thats good.

 

[Quartz]

The files I coped were 53GB and sure enough there is 53GB of space beign used, but they are invisible?

Perhaps the user under which you are logged in does not have permission to see them? Or did you redirect the folders?

 

[jpaul]

I then attached that drive to my PC vis a USB adapter and moved the files over, into a folder called JESSBAK

I then moved these files from JESSBAK into their relevant fodlers... i.e the DOCUMENTS into the DOCUMENTS FOLDER, the Music into Music and so on.... The files were all there and I saw them all copy over and when it was all done, there they were...

I 've not googled it, but I thought an accounts (relocatable) documents/music/etc folders were soft links, or even location was cached in the registry,
so, I would suspect JESSBAK files were not relocated to the right place .... and maybe would have been better to move them form the JESSBAk location when she was logged into her account with the drive back in her PC ... I'd be searching hidden folders under her account to see where they actually went

 

[bledd]

Enable hidden files, use treesize to browse the drive.

If the space is being used up, likely they are there.

 

[FatRakoon]

I always have the HIDDEN flagh unset. Its a habit. I also double checked them too!

Last night, when she used her PC, she said that D: has errors and she had to check the disk. Now the drive is empty and she has a few weird files in her folder ( My Documents ) and when I checked, sure enough she had a weird few filenames and we were completely unable to use the Drive to save anything, or delete those?

What I did do ( Originally )

Was copy her entire USER folder, then after I installed, I used my PC to copy them back.

Like an idiot, I did NOT think about the users, about ownership or anything, and so that could ( and probably was ) the start of he issues.

Now, the whole reason for the beginning of this, was that her files vanished anyway, before I did all of this.
Weirdly, even though Windows was able to start up just fine, its the windows drive thats been taken out and I used this DATA drive to reformat and install etc.
Once again Windows is fully able to start up and once again theh Data is whats gone awol, and now this is the third time?
So, even though the middle bit, I have done things that have been impatient and might have been an issue, there is clearly some hardware issue thats not helping my situation.

Her Mobo is a slightly funky one and so I am just going to give her a Newer PC and see how that plays out.

 

[jpaul]

Now, the whole reason for the beginning of this, was that her files vanished anyway, before I did all of this.

OK so initially the data disk in addition to the SSD had problems - both drives - with, unfortunately, potentially corruption/loss on some data files,
and, as you suggest a new Mobo, or other components maybe needed ... faulty power supply to both drives ? ... preserving the data's obviously the 1st priority, even using your initial copy.

I guess when I have migrated to new installs, logged into the new system, I have copied across the old user files manually from the old usb/sata attached drive, but using a backup would have worked too.