Lost Files after Win7 Upgrade

[KenPascoe]

Howdy All

I have just done the upgrade from Win7RC to Win7 Professional.

My laptop has two internal hard drives - C where the operating system and software is, and a larger D (500GB) where all my data is.

The installation onto C went fine. After re-start, I am, horrified to find that all the FILES in my folder tree in and under d:\My Documents are missing. In My Computer, the Drive shows as 65GB free on 465GB which means the files are probably still there. They're not hidden, I show hidden files and created a hidden file just to be sure. I tried taking ownership of one of the sub folders (don't want to make wholesale changes to the entire MyDocs folder in case I destroy an recoverability. No change.

To clarify - I can navigate my way through the entire folder tree - there are just no files in there anywhere apart from the odd ini file (such as picasa.ini)

There is only one account on the laptop, it's an Administrator account. There are other folders on the D drive - the contents of those folders are visible and accessible.

The only difference I can think of with the d:\My Documents folder is that it was part of the "Documents" library.

Help!

Any assistance greatly appreciated.

Regards, Ken

 

[Frostmourne]

Download an Ubuntu live cd and use it to see if your data can be salvaged, then clean install 7. Upgrades are useless and cause strange issues.

 

[KenPascoe]

My machine doesn't have a CD drive at all. It's a laptop with two internal drives.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello KenPascoe, welcome to Seven Forums!


Have a look at the tutorial at the link below to see if it'll help.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/56005-file-folder-hide-unhide.html?ltr=F

 

[Frostmourne]

If your machine has a DVD drive it will work too.

 

[Barman58]

Hi Ken, Welcome to seven forums.

Hopefully this is just a simple permissions issue

In Explorer

Right click on the drive in question and click permissions go to the advanced dialogue and the ownership tab and give yourself ownership of the drive.

Ok and let the permissions set on the drive

Back on the permissions tab and give your user name full control of the drive

OK and let the permissions set on the drive

You may see some errors - make a note of these and continue through until completed. you may need to repeat the procedure on these folders individually

You may also have to switch off UAC to allow initial access to the drive, but I would recommend that you turn it back on afterwards, but of course this is your choice

 

[KenPascoe]

Sorry - No optical drive at all. Just two internal hard drives.

The problem is not hidden files. I always show hidden files. To be sure I created a text file in Mydocs and then marked it as hidden - it shows.

Thanks for the replies by the way.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hi Ken, Welcome to seven forums.

Hopefully this is just a simple permissions issue

In Explorer

Right click on the drive in question and click permissions go to the advanced dialogue and the ownership tab and give yourself ownership of the drive.

Ok and let the permissions set on the drive

Back on the permissions tab and give your user name full control of the drive

OK and let the permissions set on the drive

You may see some errors - make a note of these and continue through until completed. you may need to repeat the procedure on these folders individually

You may also have to switch off UAC to allow initial access to the drive, but I would recommend that you turn it back on afterwards, but of course this is your choice

Did you see Barman58's s post above?

 

[Frostmourne]

Sorry - No optical drive at all. Just two internal hard drives.

The problem is not hidden files. I always show hidden files. To be sure I created a text file in Mydocs and then marked it as hidden - it shows.

Thanks for the replies by the way.

Try the permissions advice. If that fails you can try Ubuntu via USB - is that how you installed 7?

 

[KenPascoe]

Hi Barman58

I tried your suggestion on a folder in the tree:
(a) because it's only folders/files in and under d:\my documents that are affected;
(b) I don't want to make wholesale changes until I have something I think is going to work.

So I did it on d:\my documents\V Australia\ correspondence (which has several files and folders in it).

Right Click, Properties, Security, Advanced, Owner, Edit, Selected My Username, Ticked "Replace Owner on sub containers and objects", Ok, Warning Message - Ok, Ok, Ok, Right click on Folder, properties, security, looking at permissions - I have everything from Full Control through to Write (but not Special Permission).

Also - there are three "Account Unknown" entries in the Group or usernames box that I haven't seen before.

This hasn't fixed anything unfortunately - I can click into Correspondence, see the folders in it, click into those folders, create files in the folders and delete them, etc.

Again, thanks for the reply - any other suggestions?


Do you believe I should attempt what you've suggested on the whole drive? I have two potential last ditch recoveries:

- I made an Acronis Tru-Image of the C drive before the upgrade - I could restore that back to Win7RC and hope the files are accessible;
- I could remove the drive and attached it externally to another machine. Removal is a pain, last time it was done the motherboard ended up fried (it was done by a HP technician, would you believe?)

As such modifying the permissions of the whole drive (or just the MyDOcs folder, which is the only folder tree affected by this problem) worries me in that it might compromise my last ditch recovery options - horrible as they are ...

Ken

 

[Barman58]

Hi ken What are the existing Ownership / permissions on one of these folders? can you possibly post some snips of the dialogues? (it's ok to blank out any personal info ),

The other thing you could try is to copy one of the folders to a location where you do have correct access, the basic rule is that permissions are transferred with a move but when copied take on the permissions of the folder copied to.

Another thing that will often help here is the hidden administrator account - if you enable this it should override any confused permission sets and allow you to work with these files, in fact with faulty permissions this is often the only way to work with the files

 

[Frostmourne]

Ubuntu on USB:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick

 

[KenPascoe]

The Win7 install was a screwup from the beginning. Since I don't have a DVD drive, I made a boot USB stick. I have another HP laptop with a similar config and upgraded that earlier in the day.

Older Laptop

That machine has only one hard drive, no DVD, but it does have a base station that has a DVD drive in it. I booted off the DVD and ran the install - but it stopped long after the GUI launched with "Required DVD/CD device driver missing" and the install would not continue. I spent most of yesterday hunting for a solution, found lots of references to this message, but none of them seemed germane. I chased down current DVD and chipset drivers from HP and stuck them on the USB, pointing the install at them - to no avail.

In desperation yesterday afternoon I found a reference to editing a file on the install disk that allows the Win7 install to be an upgrade over the RC. So I ended up copying the files across from the USB stick, modifying the relevant ini file, and running the install that way - first to my spare laptop, which is running fine with no files missing that I can detect.

So I did the same to my working laptop - I was running tight on time and an Upgrade where all my existing software and setting would be preserved seemed to good to be true (and it seems, it was).

And here I am.


Ken

 

[KenPascoe]

Hi Barman58

Ok, logged in as the Administrator (no password). No files.

Damn, I really thought that was going to work.

Again, it's only files in the My Documents Folder. There are a couple of other folders off the D drive where I have some stuff stored - all Ok in there.

Damn, Damn, Damn.

Not sure what screenshots would be useful - here are three, let me know what you need to see. I have a gotomypc account, so could possible give you access through that. Or a VOIP call if that suits.

Ken








Ken

 

[Frostmourne]

The upgrade broke a lot of files - I'd salvage your files and then reinstall 7.

 

[KenPascoe]

Hey Frostmourne

More that than - the upgrade broke every single file in the My Documents structure - a good 300GB worth.

Downloading the Ubantu ISO for the USB stick at the moment ...

Part of my problem is Upgrading. If I could have installed from the USB boot and done a fresh install I would have. Of course now even if I go down that road I have no idea whether I will regain access to my files, which are all important - work and play wise.

Ken

 

[Frostmourne]

Hey Frostmourne

More that than - the upgrade broke every single file in the My Documents structure - a good 300GB worth.

Downloading the Ubantu ISO for the USB stick at the moment ...

Part of my problem is Upgrading. If I could have installed from the USB boot and done a fresh install I would have. Of course now even if I go down that road I have no idea whether I will regain access to my files, which are all important - work and play wise.

Ken

See if Ubuntu can salvage your files, then buy a cheap DVD burner. Assuming you have a spare SATA port and power cable, the LG GH 22 series are a good buy. They don't have Bluebird either.

 

[Barman58]

OK looking at the last snip -

the interesting thing here is the administrator's group having two entries.

The special permissions one may be the key here - if you check this you may find some Deny permissions set - if so - as deny permissions override allow permissions and the administrators group is a powerful one such permissions here may be causing the problems.

The unknown accounts are remnants of your previous installs and can be removed.

As this is a data only drive what I would actually do here, for testing, is break the inherited status of the permissions, (advanced permissions dialogue, change button),
and remove all permissions.

If you then add full control to yourself, the administrators, and system, this should clear the blockage

I have to go sleep shortly, (1:30 am here), but will return in AM to see if you have had any progress

Edit
forgot to add that the above is best performed as the full admin

 

[KenPascoe]

See if Ubuntu can salvage your files, then buy a cheap DVD burner. Assuming you have a spare SATA port and power cable, the LG GH 22 series are a good buy. They don't have Bluebird either.

That assumes the problem I'm having with the win7 install relates to a lack of burner. the other HP laptop I have has an external burner and is giving me this same missing DVD/CD device driver error. But yes, once I recover my files I will (one way or another) do a complete blitz of the C drive and a fresh Win7 install.

Ken

 

[Frostmourne]

See if Ubuntu can salvage your files, then buy a cheap DVD burner. Assuming you have a spare SATA port and power cable, the LG GH 22 series are a good buy. They don't have Bluebird either.

That assumes the problem I'm having with the win7 install relates to a lack of burner. the other HP laptop I have has an external burner and is giving me this same missing DVD/CD device driver error. But yes, once I recover my files I will (one way or another) do a complete blitz of the C drive and a fresh Win7 install.

Ken

External drives have issues, not so much internal (or at all).