EXTREMELY URGENT! Please help me

I am giving a very indepth course starting on Monday 12 December for which I have been preparing for the past two weeks by pulling off research from the net and quoting from books.

I haves been working in Word. The entire course was saved on my desktop under the title of the course. There are 9 documents (all world documents) each containing many pages of work.

This morning the entire folder is GONE! I have done a search to find the documents but the computer cannot find these files. When i open Word, the documents are still listed as the last ones opened. When I try to open from Word the computer tells me 'invalid path'.

This is a total train smash to me. I cannot rewrite the course in 4 days. (Even more worrying, is how did this happen?? Neither my husband nor my daughter will do such a thing, and you can be sure I did not do it!)

Please please can someone help me to retrieve the lost data? I don't know much about computers, so you will have to have patience.

The system is running on Vista Home Basic and I have been working in Word2007.

If anyone can help, I will truly be eternally greatful.

i know that there are programs that can recovery old files. might look into that.

reply to post by UnlimitedSky


There are people on this site that can recover just about anything. Be patient, nothing is ever completely lost until the gold is removed from the hard drive. Be patient and investigate whoever gives you the answer as to how to recover the file. Best wishes.

reply to post by ThetaNuRucka


Much appreciated!

Just to let you know, we have left the world of credit card fascility, though, so buying over the net is not an option.

Your looking for data recovery software. Next time back it up on flash drive or CD

I sent you a private message.

Do a system restore to the last point you had it on there.
2nd.

Originally posted by AllUrChips
Do a system restore to the last point you had it on there.
2nd.

System restore will not recover data

reply to post by UnlimitedSky

OK. The most important thing is that you do not save, delete or download any more programs on your computer. In other words, do not make changes until you run a file recovery tool on that drive.

I'll try and keep it concise. When you delete a folder accidentally and the files in it, the data is not erased, only the bookmark (an analogy) to where that data/files is/are. If you run a file recovery tool (which you obviously will need to download) on that drive, it should be able to recover all or most of that data again, provided you have not made too many disk writes.

ETA The poster underneath me mentions a system restore but its a function I believe is only to safeguard Windows startup operations and will not affect places like "My Documents". The previous versions trick would be a good place to try first, if that doesn't work, I would be very cautious about making possible changes to your disk without running a windows file-recovery tool.

reply to post by UnlimitedSky


You might be able to do a system restore to an earlier date when the files were still there (but that's a very risky way to try first). You could also try to restore the files from 'previous versions' of the files (shadow copies) that Windows saves as part of a restore point (probably a better option to start with).

You can find info about those two methods here: windows.microsoft.com...

There is also a bunch of free software that can help you recover the deleted files. Here's a very important point you need to keep in mind:

Stop What You're Doing

When your operating system deletes a file, all it really does is mark the space on your hard drive that your file occupies as free space. It's still there, but your computer is now perfectly happy to write new data on top of it—at which point the file recovery process becomes a lot more difficult. That means you should do as little computing as possible until you find the file you're looking for, since every time you save a new file—every time your computer writes information to your hard drive—your chances of recovering the file go down.

You can find more information about this and other recover methods at the following links:
lifehacker.com...
www.infopackets.com...
www.tech-pro.net...
www.pcworld.com...

Don't tacle this yourself. You could do more harm than good. Take it to a well established computer repair store. A tech will have a good understanding of Windows architecture and of the possible things that could have happened. This is your best shot outside of paying big bucks for professional data recovery where you would likely have to send your hard drive away also. This advice comes from someone who has done data recovery for many people.

Please perform following steps to find your folder

1. Open My computer.

2. Please double click on C: (System Partition).

3. Double click on Documents and Settings.

4. Double click on your User Name.

5. Double click on Desktop option to see your folders.

You may also try showing all hidden files and folders. Follow these steps to do that:

1. Open Windows Explorer (Windows Key + E).
2. Click on Tools menu.
3. Click on Folder Options...
4. Click on the View Tab.
5. Select the radio button corresponding to "Show Hidden files and folders".
6. Click Apply button.
7. Click OK.
8. Close everything.
9. Go back to your Desktop and check if you could see the folders that you've been looking for.

I hope this helps.

reply to post by UnlimitedSky


The statement ´path not found´ could be a clue that your documents had been saved to a removable storage such as a USB stick or something else.
Or do you have other hard drives within a network?
I hope I could help.

reply to post by AkumaStreak


Gotcha! Waiting for you kind assistance.


Ps: Thanxxxx everybody for your interest to help me. So strange, during meditation this morning, I could not calm the mind because I kept thinking that I sould save my course onto a memory stick.

reply to post by truthseeker58

The statement ´path not found´ could be a clue that your documents had been saved to a removable storage such as a USB stick or something else.

It could also mean that the files have been deleted or moved somewhere else. But if that were the case I would expect it to say something more like "the specified file does not exist" or just "file not found". The fact it is specifically saying there's a problem with the path could indicate a removable device is no longer available.

if somebody did delete them accidentally, then they will be in the "recycle bin".
One in a million chance, but its worth a look.

reply to post by UnlimitedSky


If it is in fact gone you will have to run a recovery tool but did you check the recycle bin for an accidental deletion? Just a thought.

WHOA! Before you do anything drastic, consider the obvious. Open your Recycle Bin and look there first. I don't believe a search will normally turn up documents in the Recycle Bin.

I'm not suggesting you're stupid; I've done the same thing, and I'm head of the IT Department.

Download Advanced System Care
Link

In the toolbox it has a program that recovers recently deleted files.
It always works for me.

I'm going to second the idea that you should not tackle this alone, but seek a computer guru. Look in the recycle bin, and if you don't find it, seek help -

Best of luck -