Exe files going missing. Programs disappear

eve80 · 23 Dec 2015

Hi All,

I wanted to thank you all in advance for any input into my misery.

About a month ago I didn't log out of the computer (left it logged in running on battery) and eventually it died due to low battery.

After restarting I realized that most installed by me programs are missing their exe files. They don't show up on "programs and features" list, they don't come up on the start menu, the files created in such programs have no program association, and even when clicking on "open with" the program doesn't show up on the list of choices.

I can see all the folders still there, but no exe files to start the programs.

I tried re-installing Adobe Photoshop elements today. It finished the process successfully, I could see a shortcut on the desktop appear but after a reboot, the program is gone again, and shortcut disappeared. It doesn't show up anywhere, as mentioned.

Also, back when I first tried to solve the issue, I tried restoring the system. I only found one restore point from about the day I left the computer running.

I ran CCleaner, MalwareBytes to no avail. I tried looking at Event Log but can't find anything specific.

Any thoughts?

ICIT2LOL · 25 Dec 2015

Hello and welcome Eve look try running some recovery software and one that comes to mind is this https://www.piriform.com/recuva > download from piriform and let us know if you can get back those files as it is very hard to delete stuff completely by what you have done and it usually takes a real wipe to destroy data.

Ztruker · 25 Dec 2015

Enter chkdsk c: /f from a Elevated Command Prompt.
Reply Y when asked if you want to do this at boot.
Restart the computer and let chkdsk run.

See if that helps.

eve80 · 25 Dec 2015

I thought about recovery software but had one hesitation. Could running it possibly corrupt any of my personal files? I have some pictures that I would hate to lose. Should I move them out of the c: drive before trying the recovery process?

I will try both the check disk and recovery tomorrow - it's been a long day today - and let you know what happens.

Thank you for your input. Merry Christmas!

ICIT2LOL · 26 Dec 2015

eve80 said:

I thought about recovery software but had one hesitation. Could running it possibly corrupt any of my personal files? I have some pictures that I would hate to lose. Should I move them out of the c: drive before trying the recovery process?

I will try both the check disk and recovery tomorrow - it's been a long day today - and let you know what happens.

Thank you for your input. Merry Christmas!

Not that I know of Eve and if you want you can always try this to recover data ie pics and docs and save to an external drive and it might be worth while thinking of using this

Imaging with free Macrium this is also a good program for cloning should you ever want to do that.

BOOTABLE UBUNTU
Make a bootable Ubuntu disk Download Ubuntu Desktop | Download | Ubuntu
Set the BIOS to boot from the optical when the machine boots it will show you a screen with TRY or INSTALL > select TRY not INSTALL
When it is finished - it takes very little time you will get a screen like in the pic .
Open the drive you want > User and dig down until you get to the data / settings you may be able to copy / paste the material you want to an external source or other installed drive doing this.
I am not sure if it will but I have recovered tons of data etc using this method both on "dead" or just plain drives that you cannot get data from using Windows.

This runs in it's own environment - no Windows involvement but do use TRY not INSTALL