Weird problem

Saturday night (7/2/11) when I went to bed my Windows 2007 machine was working fine, or so I thought. At least I could find everything and everything was in its correct location. When I woke up Sunday morning and turned on the machine it was if I had been hit by Katrina as the desktop was a mess and little was where it should be and some programs did not even work as they should. Little by little I have been rounding up pieces but Microsoft Office One Note has lost all of the information I had entered there during the past two years and my Calendar Creator Program (Riverdeep) is in much the same situation. The loss of Calendar data is disappointing but I can re-enter from other sources but the Microsoft Office One Note cannot as those were random saves from the Internet as needed and notes that I need frequently. It is something like waking up to find the streets in the city where you live have been moved to other locations if they can be found at all and some of the houses have been removed.

Hi IrvingSF, welcome to sevenforums. This could be a virus or malware problem. Have you got your antivirus and anti-malware running? If not, try downloading MSE (its free) from here:- Virus, Spyware & Malware Protection | Microsoft Security Essentials and anti-malware from Malwarebytes (also free) from here:- Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Downloads . when you have installed them, make sure you also download the latest updates. Then do a full scan with both and post the results if you need any help.

I would first start by trying to identify exactly what happened to cause the problem.

For example, go to the Event Viewer, which is located at: Control Panel-Administrative Tools, Event Viewer, Windows Logs, Applications, and see what entries are listed for July 2nd and early morning July 3rd. Study the Event Viewer for any errors, and check the Performance log on the Advanced Tools page accessed by clicking your WEI score link at Computer, Properties. Also check for cued issues at top of the Tools page, and generate a System Health Report.
(Why don't you post those entries so someone on this forum can help you?)

Then, before you actually do anything else, you might look through the various troubleshooting options provided by Microsoft.
Windows Support Center – Windows 7 ‘Fix It’ – solutions + support from Microsoft
Windows 7 – Technical Problems and Troubleshooting
How to See Windows 7 Reliability and Problem History with Reliability Monitor
How to Run Disk Check in Windows 7 (dskchk)
How to Repair Windows 7 System Files with SFC/SCANNOW System File Checker

I have my McAfee anti-virus software running all times and even have done a few extra scans since Sunday morning. The weirdest thing to me is that in Safe Mode I recovered Microsoft One Note data but not my Calender Creator data. Nor has my Libraries folder been restored to what it should be and I cannot find a way to add the four folders that were there previously. Thankfully however I haven't actually lost any of my files especially photo files. I have checked the event viewer and there are a ton of listings there which are meaningless to me If I were to post those here it would take several pages to list the errors and warnings. Oh, what to do, what to do, wtd, wtd, etc.

Seeing as you're fortunately enough to have found most of your files/folders, I would first BACK THEM UP on an independent, separate device like an external hard drive, travel drive, etc.

Then, even though the reports are long, I would post them here, because we've got some pretty sophisticated members who can hopefully figure out what could've caused the initial problem(s).

How am I supposed to post any portion of the event log here? There seems to be no SAVE & COPY provisions in the event viewer or am I overlooking something.

If you can't highlight the information and save it by either a right-click save on your mouse, or any other method, you can do a series of Print Screens and post them.