Pictures disappearing

[radioviking]

The past few times I've been going through my pictures in explorer, I keep realizing that a couple of them have totally disappeared! They're not in my trash can and they haven't been moved - they're just gone! And it seems to be totally at random. At first I thought it might be that when I rotate a picture it doesn't save, or something strange like that, but I just restored a picture from my recycle bin and dind't modify it in any way, and it disappeared right before my eyes! The thumbnail was there one second and was gone the next. What's really odd is that with one or two of the pictures if I've remember the file name I can still upload it to, say, facebook for example. But it seems like that only works within a certain short time period like five minutes. It's really starting to freak me out because some of those pictures are quite important and I can't find a way of getting them back. Has anyone here even experienced this before? I'm afraid to even look at my pictures in case more of them disappear. Please help!

 

[James Colbert]

Welcome, radioviking .

I would first immediately back the images up to another HD. Then I would run a disk check.

 

[seavixen32]

I second James's thoughts, backup your images as soon as possible.

If you haven't got an external hard drive, now would be a good time to get one.

Have you noticed any clicking noises from the hard drive when you start your computer?

 

[radioviking]

I second James's thoughts, backup your images as soon as possible.

If you haven't got an external hard drive, now would be a good time to get one.

Have you noticed any clicking noises from the hard drive when you start your computer?

No, not at all :/

I will be backing them up immediately.

 

[seavixen32]

In that case, we'll see what the disk check that James suggested turns up.

As a matter of interest, how old is the internal hard drive and when was the last time it was defragmented?

 

[fseal]

If you put the display mode of the fodler to "Details" do the images show back up? Maybe it's just a problem with the thumbnailer mechanism...

 

[whs]

If you have restore points, you may be able to retrieve the lost specimens with Shadow Explorer.

 

[radioviking]

I ran a disk check and it said that no problems were found.

 

[Imperfect1]

radioviking, a few words of caution: Until you've recovered your pics (or determined that you can't recover any more of them) it's VERY IMPORTANT that you don't save anything or create any new files or folders. In fact, the less you do on your computer, the better, because anything created or saved could be created or saved right over the very files you're trying to recover.

Therefore, before you use ANY recovery software: be sure to check out all of the options before you actually use any one of them. Although most recovery software products just scan your system before they actually change it, you don't want to take a chance that ANYTHING is done to your system until you are absolutely sure what course you want to take. That also goes for writing any files to your system or making any changes of any kind. The more you use your computer, the less chance you'll have of recovering your old data.

In addition to whs's excellent suggestion of Shadows Explorer, here is some additional information and two other popular, well respected file recovering apps:

Recover lost or deleted files
Can I recover files that I have accidentally deleted?
Back up and restore: frequently asked questions
How to Recover that Photo, Picture or File You Deleted Accidentally

Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File Recovery - Home - http://www.recuva.com/ Recuva is a utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer. This includes files emptied from the Recycle bin as well as images and other files that have been deleted by user error from digital camera memory cards or MP3 players.

Glary Undelete is an easy to use, yet powerful file undelete solution for FAT and NTFS file systems. It will bring back files emptied from the Recycle Bin, in a DOS window, from Windows Explorer with the SHIFT key held down. It will even recover files that have been deleted by bugs, crashes and viruses! (GlaryUtilities Undelete module - Try "other builds" - the bottom link of the three - Glary Utilities)

PS For some reason, this thread is marked as "Solved" when it clearly isn't. I've requested that it be returned to "Unsolved" status so that other members won't pass it by, thinking you've got your situation fixed --- but this may be a request that can only be made by the original poster. . .

 

[thegrandanomaly]

did you solve this problem yet? i am experiencing the same issue. if you fixed it, i'd like to know how so i can fix mine

 

[ThrashZone]

See if this helps,
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/56005-file-folder-hide-unhide.html