Missing image files

[Bristolian]

Hello,

This is my first post here .

Sunday evening, my wife installed build 6956 over Vista, on her C partition, keeping (we thought) her other docs, image files etc safe on her D partition.
However, when viewing her D partition from within 7, her image files from her digital camera have gone awol.

Trying to use search for them doesn't bring any up.

Has anybody else had this?

Merry Christmas to everyone here!

Best Wishes,
Bob.

 

[garysgold]

I have just tried Recuva on 6936 x64. It worked fine. Might give it a try. Link here: Free Software List for Vista - Vista Forums

Gary

 

[Barman58]

Hi Bob,

In addition to Gary's suggestion,

If you did a Fresh install over the vista install rather than an upgrade install, you may have permissions issues with your existing data. You may want to take control of the D: drive and give your "new" user rights to all the files

have seen this quite a lot with XP to Vista installs, (often with external Drives but can happen with internals), as although the "new" and "old" users may have the same name their SID's under NTFS are different as a result of this you cannot see files untill you are added to the permissions list

 

[davehc]

I think he would still be able to see the pictures, even if he did not have permissions??
Is it possible that, when your wife did the install, it did the often swap over the D: and C: designators? If so, if she did the upgrade, the folder might be still on (now) C. Alternatively, provided she did not opt for the HD format, they could also be sitting in the folder on C. called Windows.old.

 

[Barman58]

Hi Dave,

I would think that too,

the reason I suggest it is on my 6801 x64 build I could not get the system to set my wallpaper to an image from my wallpaper folder. The files were there but would not show up until I'd taken ownership of the folder and given myself permissions.

May be a anomaly with my system only (I have Vista, Windows 7 6801 32 and 64 all on the same drive, so the permissions are a bit complicated,) but may be something worth checking

 

[johngalt]

Hi, Bristolian, and welcome to the forums.

Could you specify (so these folks can stop guessing) *exactly* how your wife performed the install? Also, are these pictures the only things from the previous Vista install that are not showing up? IOW, can you see you old documents, etc.?

Finally, can you see the folder itself? If so, right click it and see if properties shows that it has data in it (anything over a size of 100K should be sufficient to prove that there is actual data in the folder...).

 

[Bristolian]

Hello everyone, and thanks for your replies.

@ John, the install carried out was the supposed new install over Vista, i.e. not the Upgrade option. Vista was previously installed on her C partition, she stored all of her photos etc on her D partition. What I saw (and with a previous Vista installation too) were remnants of some of her programs that were installed in the previous os installation showing up in the program files directory of the latest install. Not many, acceptedly, but still some.
There may well be some other files missing from D too, and the folder in which the images were saved does not show. We'll have a play with the permissions thing, and see what happens...

Thanks everybody, once again, for your help and advice.

Very Best Wishes,
Bob.

 

[davehc]

You won't succeed with permissions if they were previously restricted with Vista.
And you confirm you have no Windows.old folder?

 

[johngalt]

Bristolian, thanks for the reply - what are the sizes of the HDs / partitions in question? Also, is this a laptop or a desktop? Finally, when you say a new install *over* I assume you mean that you used the same partition without formatting and such and the documents and such that were there in Vista on the other Drive letter are now no longer showing up?

 

[Bristolian]

Bristolian, thanks for the reply - what are the sizes of the HDs / partitions in question? Also, is this a laptop or a desktop? Finally, when you say a new install *over* I assume you mean that you used the same partition without formatting and such and the documents and such that were there in Vista on the other Drive letter are now no longer showing up?

Hello John,
The laptop is an Acer, with the HD partitioned (as new) as C (53.2 gig), and D (53.6 gig). You are indeed correct in your assumption with regard to the missing files.

Best Wishes,
Bob.

 

[johngalt]

OK, then, what are the statistics on the folders in the new build? I wonder if it is simply hiding the folders from view for some other reason....

For example, guessing at how large a folder was before, do a properties check and see how much the OS reports the folder actually has in it right now....

Also, what was the methodology used to save the files to the D drive - just manually selecting it every time or was Vista 'customized' to use those folders on D as the Vista special folders? If the latter, then are you still looking in the the same location from the My Computer / explorer window, such as in Pictures, or are you physically navigating to the folders themselves where the data used to reside?

 

[Bristolian]

OK, then, what are the statistics on the folders in the new build? I wonder if it is simply hiding the folders from view for some other reason....

For example, guessing at how large a folder was before, do a properties check and see how much the OS reports the folder actually has in it right now....

Also, what was the methodology used to save the files to the D drive - just manually selecting it every time or was Vista 'customized' to use those folders on D as the Vista special folders? If the latter, then are you still looking in the the same location from the My Computer / explorer window, such as in Pictures, or are you physically navigating to the folders themselves where the data used to reside?

Hello John,

Unfortunately, she has no idea on what her folder sizes were beforehand. The files were saved to D by right-clicking and saving as to partition D.

Very Best Wishes,
Bob.

 

[johngalt]

OK, so in Windows 7, I want you to open the Disk Management and use Snipping tool to capture a screen shot of it and post it for us....I want ot see all the partitions in the HD....

 

[baarod]

You won't succeed with permissions if they were previously restricted with Vista.

Login as a member of the administrators group and take ownership of the drive recursively then set all permissions for the current user (or the everyone builtin account if you want to use the shotgun approach). Try not to touch the recycler or system volume information or things will get more complicated.

 

[johngalt]

Before you do that, - I want to make sure first that your wife actually performed the *upgrade* and didn't accidentally perform a separate clean install....hence I want to see the partitions..

 

[baarod]

Before you do that, - I want to make sure first that your wife actually performed the *upgrade* and didn't accidentally perform a separate clean install....hence I want to see the partitions..

Sorry. My post was not meant for him but rather in rebuttal to the assertion that restrictions established by Vista could not be overridden by 7's ownership/permissions mechanism.

 

[johngalt]

Ah, then my apologies as well for trying to interrupt you....

 

[baarod]

Ah, then my apologies as well for trying to interrupt you....

No worries, mate.