Update and good news, but kind of a long story so bear with me.
I finally bit the bullet and opened a Microsoft support ticket. I worked with a technician for several days and she eventually concluded that she couldn't resolve the issue and suggested I wait a few days and call to get a refund of my $100 support fee. In the meantime, I took her suggestion to download Recuva and try to get some things back that way. I opted for the $24.95 package that would provide support. The software recovered more than 325,000 files but would not allow me to actually pull them onto my harddrive because some of the paths were too long. I opened a support ticket and was really disappointed with the suggestions because none of them were any more than pointing me back to the posts on the free forum.
After being frustrated for a few weeks and just giving the laptop ugly looks, I called Microsoft to get a refund. The refund guy asked me if I'd let them give it one more try and I said sure.
VOILA!!! It's fixed!!!! The technician found an .xps file that wouldn't open that also had a corresponding .downloading file. He installed free software - Dolphin XPS Viewer - and processed a conversion of that one .xps file to a .pdf. It converted and, in doing so, fixed EVERYTHING!! The technician said he has seen it before where there is a missing codec and by trying to use a piece of software to do the conversion instead of the "open with", it fixes the problem.
I'm thrilled and very relieved. I have a ton on clean up to do - the .downloading files are still resident and some didn't convert (as it was, some .doc and .jpeg files were involved too), so I'm having to do some pretty time-consuming follow-up, but at the end of the day it's a whole lot better than having lost all the files.
Thanks everyone for all your help! I hope my "end of story" helps others.
I finally bit the bullet and opened a Microsoft support ticket. I worked with a technician for several days and she eventually concluded that she couldn't resolve the issue and suggested I wait a few days and call to get a refund of my $100 support fee. In the meantime, I took her suggestion to download Recuva and try to get some things back that way. I opted for the $24.95 package that would provide support. The software recovered more than 325,000 files but would not allow me to actually pull them onto my harddrive because some of the paths were too long. I opened a support ticket and was really disappointed with the suggestions because none of them were any more than pointing me back to the posts on the free forum.
After being frustrated for a few weeks and just giving the laptop ugly looks, I called Microsoft to get a refund. The refund guy asked me if I'd let them give it one more try and I said sure.
VOILA!!! It's fixed!!!! The technician found an .xps file that wouldn't open that also had a corresponding .downloading file. He installed free software - Dolphin XPS Viewer - and processed a conversion of that one .xps file to a .pdf. It converted and, in doing so, fixed EVERYTHING!! The technician said he has seen it before where there is a missing codec and by trying to use a piece of software to do the conversion instead of the "open with", it fixes the problem.
I'm thrilled and very relieved. I have a ton on clean up to do - the .downloading files are still resident and some didn't convert (as it was, some .doc and .jpeg files were involved too), so I'm having to do some pretty time-consuming follow-up, but at the end of the day it's a whole lot better than having lost all the files.
Thanks everyone for all your help! I hope my "end of story" helps others.
My Computer
At a glance
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bitIntel Core i33.00 GB
- Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
- Dell N5010
- OS
- Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
- CPU
- Intel Core i3
- Memory
- 3.00 GB
