Help! Recover missing files from the hard drive.

[NickMc46]

I am using windows 7 ultimate.
Today I booted the computer and it went to a message that said preparing desktop. After windows loaded the normal software was present, but my customized links were gone and the default background was present. My files that were in my normal user folders were not present, but were later located in the users/username folder. I moved some of these folders to the desktop as that is where they had previously done. In the users folder there were 3 folders (public, my username and whatever the new default user was called). When I restarted the computer everything came back to normal, except the folders of files I had placed on the new desktop. I went into the user folder, but it only had my current user and the public folders.

How do I recover the files from the desktop from the random corrupted profile that windows created which I can not manually log into? I searched for the files and the last record of them is linked to my user and says the shortcut is not valid. I tried a system restore and that did not help at all.

Thanks!

Nick

 

[DMHolt57]

Welcome to SevenForums NickMc46, give us your system specs and how long has this ultimate version been installed, any hard drive reconfiguration recently?

 

[NickMc46]

Acer Aspire 5920. 1.83 Duo core. 3 GB Ram. 250gb HD.
It has been installed on the computer for about 1.5 months, computer was formatted at that time and was the last thing done.

 

[bigmck]

You might try a System Restore to a time before you had the problem.

 

[NickMc46]

Tried a system restore to 5 days before it happened and it did not bring them back. They are on the desktop of the username which is no longer present. The computer randomly created one and it dissapeared and logged in normal upon a restart. If I would have left the files in there previous location I wouldn't have this issue.