Disappearing jpg files

I am running Win 7 Ultimate 32 bit. On occassion I go to a folder under my pictures that I know contains many pictures only to find the folder there but empty. On other occassions I have lost complete folders. A deep scan with recovery software finds nothing. I have show all folders checked. I am becoming very distrustful of Windows 7.
Any ideas of what to do, where to look?

The obvious question:

1) Does anyone else have access to your system (locally or remotely)?

As for where to look, I'd do a search for full or partial filenames that I know were in the folder. Search your entire system. I myself would use Windows Search, but some have issues with it, so you could downlod the free Everything .

You may also want to check out this tutorial on the chance that they've somehow been marked as 'Hidden':

Hidden Files and Folders - Show or Hide


Also, regular imaging of your HD is a good thing

James

what recovery did you do? for results you should note that recovery is unlikely to work if you have been doing any downloading/installing/defragging since the files were deleted/went missing.

Also make sure your recovery software is saving its results on another drive e.g. USB Drive or other internal hard drive.

Have you checked for viruses?

Have you run chkdsk in elevated command prompt?

The properties of the empty folders show 0 contents. I searched using the windows search and later a program called Recuva. Recuva took hours to deep scan my hard drive but still found nothing. The files are not shared. Defrag program was constantly running in the background--I have since shut it down. I have also copied all my jpg files to my laptop. Since doing so I have found files which have gone invisible on my desktop still present on my laptop. I am wondering if somehow the hd on my desktop could be faulty, although disk scan finds nothing wrong.