Images in folders are gone...?

Need some major help here. Can’t find anything else via Google.

Computer setup: did a clean install of Vista x64 in January with a new hard drive on a new machine. Moved the older hard drive to be a second drive (E: ) on the computer to store my mp3’s and jpg’s. Family images were stored in a folder on the Public drive of the old machine, so we kept that nomenclature on the x64 install, just pointing the My Pictures folder to the e:\users\public\My Pictures folder, instead of C:\. On Public because we share this drive out with the laptops on the network.

Installed Windows 7 RC on Wednesday using the upgrade feature. Only hiccup was that I had to uninstall Windows Live OneCare to continue the upgrade.

Everything seemed to go smooth as a bell and I’m loving it. Wife went to go save the most recent pictures of Jr. and freaked – all the folders of the images are there, but not a single Jpg file. All are gone. Every one of our 150 or so folders are present, but all of the images in the sub folders can’t be found.

Loaded up Windows Live Photo Gallery and the folder structure showed up, the icon’s of the pictures showed up for a brief second and then poof – they disappeared with the “No items match your search.” All of my music files – and those related JPG’s are there, so it’s not like someone or something went in and said “Delete *.jpg”. All of the movies in that Public folder are there as well.

What in the world happened? Please – I’m desperate – any and all suggestions here would be grateful –

first dont empty the recycle bin. make sure you have show all files/folders checked. Have you done anywork on the computer between then and now?

Ken

Define work - I've searched EVERYWHERE For these things. But I have not installed anything other than the MS Drivers for the mouse to get my scroll wheel moving. outside that, just Internet. Installed on Wednesday and didn't even think to check the images on this drive. I did delete some other images on the drive today to help eliminate false positives on my search.

zigzag3143 said:

first dont empty the recycle bin. make sure you have show all files/folders checked. Have you done anywork on the computer between then and now?

Ken

7head said:

Define work - I've searched EVERYWHERE For these things. But I have not installed anything other than the MS Drivers for the mouse to get my scroll wheel moving. outside that, just Internet. Installed on Wednesday and didn't even think to check the images on this drive. I did delete some other images on the drive today to help eliminate false positives on my search.

So the ones you deleted are still in the recycle bin right? just double click and look.

There are several different things this could be.

BTW welcome to sevenforums


Ken

darkassain said:

also is explorer showing the E: drive (where you have your media) and if you can can you see your pictures?

Yes, explorer is showing the entire file and folder structure of e: drive. It indexed all of my music, and it indexed the pictures as Photo Gallery immediately showed the folder tree structure when I brought up the application. I was thinking that WLPG moved the images as part of their indexing process. No luck.

I did a Shift Delete on the old IE image cache that was pulling up about 400 jpg image results, so no, these are not showing in recycle bin. I did view the recycle bin and none of my images I am looking for (about 10,000 images) appeared.

could you tell us exactly what preceeded the jpgs going missing. did you do a defrag, a chkdsk, or anything to the disk or OS? could you also just right click a folder that looks empty and see what the size is in properties

Ken

zigzag3143 said:

could you tell us exactly what preceeded the jpgs going missing. did you do a defrag, a chkdsk, or anything to the disk or OS? could you also just right click a folder that looks empty and see what the size is in properties

Ken

I've outlined all the major tasks before I upgraded to Windows 7 RC: had to uninstall OneCare.

Holy Crap - Dude, you found it. I was in Properties and decided to hit explore why there were 0 files. Went to Previous Versions tab and wallah - there are a month of previous versions to choose from (THANK THE LORD I did an upgrade). All files are being restored.

Woah - what a nightmare. How did that happen?

i have seen that from a bad dvd burn, and a few other things. I gotta tell you I was settled in for the long haul and you should play the lottery today. ALso might want to think abt backups. I have to do some research on the previous versions thing but maybe someone else has an idea. Just tell your wife you will never let that happen again <g>

Ken

Last backup was a few weeks ago --- and tonight --- and I am not sure what happened but I am counting my blessings. don't want to play the lottery until I get the backup and then verify the backup was complete. Wife was finding the shovel to start digging my grave. Glad I am at least only in the dog house, not 6 ft. under!

Thanks for the suggestion to go into the Proprieties tab! You da man!