Copied Windows' Users folder to HDD, lost all files

Rossmac

Rossmac

Rossmac

Associate
Joined
10 Nov 2005
Posts
650
Location
Unknown
Hi there,

I'm just looking a bit of help. To get to the point, I was doing an upgrade for a friend of his laptop and I selected the Users folder and copied it across to my external HDD. It took about 10 mins and by the end I had presumed with the time it took that the data was on it fine.

Formatted the laptop and when I went to restore the data, there was none there (except an App Data folder in the user's folder). Obviously I bricked it as there was photos from years ago on it!

The thing is though, if you right click on the Users folder on the HDD, it reads as 6.42gb which would indicate that the data is there but I just can't see it...

I've tried a few "recover" programs but all they do is show me stuff that I've emptied from my Recycle Bin. Also, I've got all folders to show and I am the Administrator of my account.

I tried loading up Ubuntu to see if it could read it but no joy!

I'm out of suggestions and really am desperate! Please please help me! :)

Thanks!
 
Weird that it can't read the folders in Ubuntu if they are there :confused:

Can you track down where the 6.42GB of data is within the folder structure?

How many user accounts were there? Did you do the copying to the HDD within Windows initially?
 
Is the external HDD NTFS formatted? If so, you could have copied all the NTFS permissions across from the original drive so that the files are still set to the ownership of 'PC\username'.
 
That isnt what should happen, it only maintains permissions etc if copied to the same partition. Worth taking ownership of the folder if you aren't already though.
 
if the folders you can see do add up to 6gb (check them one at a time), you need to download Pandora recovery (free) do a surface scan it will take a while (hours) avoid writing and installing anything to the amchine until you have recovered the files as you cannot (obviously) recover somethign that gets overwritten...

if the file permissions look ok I would still reset them and force everyone full control over everything in the folder..
 
I'd check that the folder isn't encrypted. Then take ownership. If you can't see anything still try TreeSize Free to track down where that 6gb is coming from..
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom