Downloads have disappeared- folders only showing in "recent"

sportsmomma · 02 Apr 2013

I'll give that a try Blink. It is also mp3 files, and pictures that I've saved- into a specific folder.

nilank · 02 Apr 2013

OK sportsmomma, one last try.

Click Start

> Type 'folder options' and hit Enter.
Go to 'View' tab and check the radio button against 'Show hidden files and folders' and also uncheck 'Hide protected system files' to make sure everything can be searched.

Now open Computer and type the following one by one in the search box on the top right corner.

*.doc
*.docx
*.mp3

This will search all hidden files, system hidden files and non hidden files on all drives for all DOC, DOCX and MP3 files

If you still can't find, they are gone for good. Though you may try recovering them as Brink said.

sportsmomma · 02 Apr 2013

Brink- will the free version of this work or do I need to purchase the software?

Brink · 02 Apr 2013

Yes, the free version of Recuva is fine. No need to purchase the other version. :)

sportsmomma · 03 Apr 2013

Brink- Using Recuva I was able to find many of the files but unfortunately most of them showed "unrecoverable". What was strange is what it showed they were overwritten by- one was overwritten by a picture from my ipad. Very strange.

Brink · 03 Apr 2013

I'm sorry to hear that you weren't able to recover all of them.

It sounds like they may have deleted by mistake. When deleted, they are just marked deleted and not actually wiped out until something else (ex: from iPad) is saved to the same sector location on the hard drive that makes the deleted files overwritten.