Windows 7 and lost desktop files

[transpose]

Hi everyone, I have a problem. I used a Windows 7 laptop for a presentation and we all saved files onto the desktop of a user's account. Upon shutdown and log-in to this same user's account, the message "Preparing your desktop" shows instead of "Welcome", and all files from the desktop is gone... I have done searches from the administrator's account, searches from within this user's account, wildcard searches, but the files are nowhere to be found.

Anyone know where these files might be 'saved' to? Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[zigzag3143]

Hi everyone, I have a problem. I used a Windows 7 laptop for a presentation and we all saved files onto the desktop of a user's account. Upon shutdown and log-in to this same user's account, the message "Preparing your desktop" shows instead of "Welcome", and all files from the desktop is gone... I have done searches from the administrator's account, searches from within this user's account, wildcard searches, but the files are nowhere to be found.

Anyone know where these files might be 'saved' to? Thanks in advance for any help!

they might be in recycling, or be hidden. You can attempt to recover them by using a 3rd party app like recuva.

It might also simply be a case that the index needs to be rebuilt.


Ken

 

[surfasb]

Sounds like Windows reset your profile for some reason.

Look under c:\users

Make sure you have "view hidden folders" checked. Windows doesn't delete old profile folders, but rather creates new ones. If the new one has the same name as an old profile, Windows will just change the name of the new profile folder. The old profile folder should still be there. Look under the different User names folders and your files should be there.

 

[transpose]

Hi Ken and surfasb,

Thanks for your quick replies! Sorry I didn't elaborate; I've already turned-on "Show hidden files", and have checked my 'Users" folder, but there wasn't any other profiles saved. I've checked the sizes of the other profiles there too (they were my colleague's) and they're all the same sizes with the same number of files... and I'm afraid that means this profile which was used (Guest) might have been over-written?

I've also checked the Recycling Bin of all the profiles, and the files are not there. Does that mean... this is it?

Ken: Thanks for your recommendation, I'll go check Recuva out. But what do you mean by rebuilding the index?

 

[zigzag3143]

Hi Ken and surfasb,

Thanks for your quick replies! Sorry I didn't elaborate; I've already turned-on "Show hidden files", and have checked my 'Users" folder, but there wasn't any other profiles saved. I've checked the sizes of the other profiles there too (they were my colleague's) and they're all the same sizes with the same number of files... and I'm afraid that means this profile which was used (Guest) might have been over-written?

I've also checked the Recycling Bin of all the profiles, and the files are not there. Does that mean... this is it?

Ken: Thanks for your recommendation, I'll go check Recuva out. But what do you mean by rebuilding the index?

Start>control panel>indexing>advanced>rebuild

 

[Bill2]

In addition to trying out what Ken said, you can try the following:

1) Run a sfc / scannow command from an elevated command line. Heres a tutorial.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

2) If Step 1) doesnt help, follow the steps in this link to fix a corrupted user profile.

Fix a corrupted user profile

 

[surfasb]

Ah, if you are using a Guest account, then it is lost.

 

[transpose]

Hi again, just to update. I've given up hope that those files will be found, as I'm pretty sure they're deleted (one way or another), and I don't wanna spend to retrieve them. Thanks for all your help; really appreciate it!