Photos missing after defragmenting

TechMinerUK · 9 Jun 2016 at 21:05

Hi everyone, recently I fragmented an old laptop to try and get it running a bit faster. Unfortunately in a case I've never seen before all the photos from the laptop have vanished (Odd I know) after the defrag. Does anyone have any idea what could have caused this and if there is anyway to recover the photos ?

I've tried Recuva and other software but their is no trace at all :confused:

Any help is greatly appreciated as I'm baffled (Sorry if this is the wrong section)

flowrider99 · 9 Jun 2016 at 21:21

I bet you're waiting for the standard response...............

So here it is..........restore your photos from your backup. In the case that you don't have a backup then they are gone.

ED209 · 9 Jun 2016 at 21:23

have you done a search for the file extension? like .jpeg on the HDD to see if anything is found?

something daft already!! · 9 Jun 2016 at 21:30

Defragging a drive with the correct tools, should not destroy any data and is also pretty pointless these days. Something else is at play. Are you certain you are looking in the right place for them?

TechMinerUK · 9 Jun 2016 at 21:33

flowrider99 said:
I bet you're waiting for the standard response...............
So here it is..........restore your photos from your backup. In the case that you don't have a backup then they are gone.

I knew this would come up (And it's what I say to others as well) and I do backup my stuff however this laptop is not actually mine and is more of a "if we get them back great if not don't worry" scenario.

ED209 said:
have you done a search for the file extension? like .jpeg on the HDD to see if anything is found?

Yep, no signs of the photos at all

howiepoohs said:
Defragging a drive with the correct tools, should not destroy any data and is also pretty pointless these days. Something else is at play. Are you certain you are looking in the right place for them?

I know but it was a project to play with (Removing the junk from the drive did more to speed it up). Yep I'm sure I'm looking in the right area as well, it's very odd I know. I'm starting to think their may have been some malware on their that has caused this

something daft already!! · 9 Jun 2016 at 21:37

Which version of windows is it running and what tool did you use to defrag?

teenwolf · 9 Jun 2016 at 21:37

Hmmm why defragging you don't need too

d_brennen · 9 Jun 2016 at 21:50

Does the free space on the drive suggest the photos are still there?

TechMinerUK · 9 Jun 2016 at 22:19

d_brennen said:
Does the free space on the drive suggest the photos are still there?

I'm not sure to be honest as their would be a maximum of 5GB so after removing junk ware I can't tell

teenwolf said:
Hmmm why defragging you don't need too

Just to see, I thought it wouldn't hurt to do it :eek:

howiepoohs said:
Which version of windows is it running and what tool did you use to defrag?

Windows 7 and I just used the built in defrag utility

d_brennen · 9 Jun 2016 at 22:33

Long shot, browse through C:\[pc-name]\Users[user-name]\ and see if they are in the pictures folder here, likewise check the \Users folder to see if there are any other user folders to check

TechMinerUK · 9 Jun 2016 at 22:39

d_brennen said:
Long shot, browse through C:\[pc-name]\Users[user-name]\ and see if they are in the pictures folder here, likewise check the \Users folder to see if there are any other user folders to check

I did and still nothing, it's really odd as usually Recuva or one of the other programs can find them (even if corrupted) but there is no trace at all :confused:

something daft already!! · 9 Jun 2016 at 22:42

So, how did you go about removing the "junk ware"? What was this? I have a sneaky feeling this is where or when the photos went.

TechMinerUK · 9 Jun 2016 at 23:03

howiepoohs said:
So, how did you go about removing the "junk ware"? What was this? I have a sneaky feeling this is where or when the photos went.

I used CCleaner to get rid of the usual culprits (Toolbars, downloaders, PUPs etc) then ran a Malwarebytes scan and installed Sophos home

something daft already!! · 9 Jun 2016 at 23:13

Those seem fairly innocuous but I still suspect that the cleaning bit is when you lost the files. Had you seen the photos on there before you started the cleanup? Can you remember the exact list of things you did to perform the cleanup? I write PC/Mac health check processes for my company and run a team of support agents who do pc health checks several times a day. I can say that we have never lost any data unless you count this one time when one of the now departed agents, accidentally deleted the entire registry for a customer once. We use those tools apart from Sophos. The one thing we tell each and every customer, before we start any work, is the importance of backups.

TechMinerUK · 9 Jun 2016 at 23:20

howiepoohs said:
Those seem fairly innocuous but I still suspect that the cleaning bit is when you lost the files. Had you seen the photos on there before you started the cleanup? Can you remember the exact list of things you did to perform the cleanup? I write PC/Mac health check processes for my company and run a team of support agents who do pc health checks several times a day. I can say that we have never lost any data unless you count this one time when one of the now departed agents, accidentally deleted the entire registry for a customer once. We use those tools apart from Sophos. The one thing we tell each and every customer, before we start any work, is the importance of backups.

Yeah, I agree on the backups but since it wasn't my PC I just did what was asked as I thought they had a backup. Now that you mention it CCleaner did a registry clean up if that could have done anything

ED209 · 10 Jun 2016 at 09:40

Did you remove any infections when running malwarebytes or did you just remove the software?

maybe it found infections which was your pictures and quarantined them all?

Mel_P · 10 Jun 2016 at 09:52

What OS and what was size of disk? If it's old and XP then I had the experience once of everything above 160GB (I think) disappearing after a defrag. There was a special command to allow XP to see drive capacities above a certain GB.

Mel

TechMinerUK · 10 Jun 2016 at 10:36

ED209 said:
Did you remove any infections when running malwarebytes or did you just remove the software?
maybe it found infections which was your pictures and quarantined them all?

Malwarebytes did highlight some stuff but nothing major, it was the usual stuff that less "Tech savvy" people have on their PC such as Opencandy and Conduit. As far as I've seen before they shouldn't have compromised the photos.

Mel_P said:
What OS and what was size of disk? If it's old and XP then I had the experience once of everything above 160GB (I think) disappearing after a defrag. There was a special command to allow XP to see drive capacities above a certain GB.
Mel

The computer was running Windows 7 and it is a 500GB HDD

bledd · 10 Jun 2016 at 10:47

Check in C:\Users\ for extra user accounts that may contain the pictures. Sometimes profiles get corrupted and Windows creates new ones so the files appear to be 'lost' until you locate them.

Also..

Restore from your backup etc, lol etc

ED209 · 10 Jun 2016 at 11:20

if you are still having no joy connect the HDD to another PC as a slave and try and use recover my files

http://www.recovermyfiles.com/

i have used it a few times at work and has managed to get lost data on a knackered HDD back. Im not too sure if they have any trial software or not though