C drive folder deleted, windows explorer not working

[Amandapeat]

Please help, i was trying to delete one of the folders in my c drive.. C/users/ amanda as i had things saving in 2 places. Well i dont know what I've done but files are missing my desktop pictures and icons habe gone and when i click on Windows ex icon it says it may have been deleted renamed or moved.. How do i restore... Thankyou

 

[Lartyconshayo]

Can you restart in safe mode and choose a restore point ?

 

[Amandapeat]

I could and did but id lost a lot of programs id installed, i was wondering if the files had to be kept somewhere or if i actually full deleted them

 

[new boy]

Well, depends...

If you cant find a restore point with your files restored, and they are not sat in the recycle bin, and you have no backup, then I guess you have deleted them, and reinstalling windows is going to be the easiest way to get you up and running again.

How important are these missing files? If you are missing like sentimental photos or something like that that are really important to you, then they are probably recoverable.

When you delete something, windows doesn't literally go and overwrite all the data with 000000. It simply marks that data as deleted, and then, only when you need to write data and that part of the hard drive is up, it will be overwritten with the new data.

It is possible to access the data marked as deleted, but has not been overwritten yet, but I have no idea how you go about this, as it is not something that I have had to do before. I imagine its not particulary easy though. If nothing else you could probably find someone local who would do it, for a fee of course.

If its just simply general stuff, just forget about it and install windows again.

 

[edscdk]

Check recycle bin,

If a sys restore failed, check if the programs are really gone or just the shortcuts, if the former create new, if the latter you will need to reinstall the programs.

 

[Drumroll]

Backup of files and fresh install.

 

[FlyingScotsman]

Well, depends...

If you cant find a restore point with your files restored, and they are not sat in the recycle bin, and you have no backup, then I guess you have deleted them, and reinstalling windows is going to be the easiest way to get you up and running again.

How important are these missing files? If you are missing like sentimental photos or something like that that are really important to you, then they are probably recoverable.

When you delete something, windows doesn't literally go and overwrite all the data with 000000. It simply marks that data as deleted, and then, only when you need to write data and that part of the hard drive is up, it will be overwritten with the new data.

It is possible to access the data marked as deleted, but has not been overwritten yet, but I have no idea how you go about this, as it is not something that I have had to do before. I imagine its not particulary easy though. If nothing else you could probably find someone local who would do it, for a fee of course.

If its just simply general stuff, just forget about it and install windows again.

There are some software packages that can restore deleted stuff, Undelete I think was one I used in the past for pictures I had deleted off my laptop by mistake, it recovered about 90% of them some were corrupted, but still impressed it got them back.

 

[WantoN]

Don't write anything to the drive. You should be able to recover it with decent software, I can't recommend any as I've never had need. I'm sure someone will chime in.

This highlights how incredibly important regular backups are, and why I'm so rigorous about it.

Please take this as a warning and set up some backup software. I recommend EaseUs ToDo Backup. Veeam Endpoint is very popular with many people too. Both have free versions.

 

[fadingfool]

Have you checked the recycle bin? It sounds like you may have only deleted the user folders and personalised settings. Rebuilding this if it isn't in your recycle bin may be problematic (the installed programs are still on your PC but the personalised bit (.ini and other files) have been deleted). I'd be tempted to create a new user and use https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva to rebuild the deleted folders but for this to have the best chance of working it needs to be done from another machine (with the drive in a caddy).

 

[Deleted member 209350]

Backup in the cloud, pay for some extra google drive storage (or whatever cloud storage you use)