Windows XP lost all data since 2005?

[90-percent]

This is a 2003 computer. It belonged to my wife, who passed away last October. It was disconnected and moved to another room two months ago and when I fired it up, it was like a time machine that stopped at 2005. It was used occasionally from 2005 to Nov 2013, then moved. All the apps and data since 2005 are gone.

Any help is appreciated.

-90% Jimmy

[gvstn]

1. I'm sorry for your loss.

Take a look at the Start menu and verify that it shows your usual username. I'm uncertain about XP but Vista/Win7 will sometimes create temporary users if a user profile is damaged. You can also look in C:\Documents and Settings folder to see if there are any randomly named folders such as oldusername.0001 which would indicate that you may be in a temporary profile.

[90-percent]

2. thanks for your help

Last edited Tue Feb 4, 2014, 02:35 PM - Edit history (1)

thanks for your help. i also went to answer.com and the ytold me to run recuva.

a gazillion files from date unknown to 8/2005 then 5 files in 2010, 2012, 2013 and 2014. an entire decade of work and apps installs and saved emails and scanned pics disappeared!

i was mostly concerned with sentimental stuff i pack ratted into it. which only became sentimental when i lost my wife. when will i ever learn a good backing up system!

it was moved by somebody else. maybe unplugging when it was on could have done this?

wife had cancer. i spent most of her last nine months together, thanks to a layoff. she made some bad health decisions in her life and i am thankful we knew it was probably coming.

jim

[gvstn]

3. Recuva will only tell you files that are deleted.

So it is possible your files are still there. Pretty much where they should be. Please do check Documents and Settings to see if there are folders that don't look obvious. If your username was Brian than there should be a Brian folder--a folder such as Brian.001 would not be normal.

If there are other folders with numbers after the usual username then that would indicate corruption. The files you are looking for may still be available in the original "Brian" folder.

*****

I see two possibilities since programs are also missing:

1) There is corruption and you are signed into a secondary account. You could run a chkdsk on your C: drive to see if that corrects the problem. Open My Computer and right-click the C: drive and select Properties. Then on the Tools tab hit the Check for Errors button. Leave only the first box ticked and hit Start. It will schedule for next reboot and say OK and reboot. See if it makes any difference.

2) You could open System Restore and see which restore points are available. If there is one closer to 2013 it might be an option to go ahead and run that.

Just moving the computer wouldn't delete data but it could have caused some sort of problem. Since Recuva doesn't see anything much after 2005, I would guess they have not been deleted but are still there somewhere.

Do the Documents and Settings thing and let me know what folders you see. Then I can advise on which of the two options might be best. The chkdsk is no problem and won't cause any harm. On the System Restore I would just start the program and see what restore points are available. It should give a list of a few dates (usually about five) even if there are a few in 2013, I would suggest you answer the Documents and Settings question before going through with a restore to maximize files recovered.

[gvstn]

4. Sometimes I think too much.

I still go by my previous post to figure out what is wrong but if there are really "an entire decade of work and apps installs and saved emails and scanned pics disappeared!" then a simple way to look for the pictures to see if they are on disk but hidden because of a corruption problem might be to run something like SpaceSniffer of Windirstat.

I've basically changed to SpaceSniffer the last few years but WinDirStat allows you to look for just image/picture files in .jpg or .png format fairly easily by using the right hand pane. Highlight the type of picture file such as .jpg in the right-hand pane and it should show all files of that format on disk with a white outline around the color coded type. If you recognize one of the pictures you are looking for then you can right click the file and choose Explorer Here and it should open a window where you can see the folder an click on the file to verify it is what you were looking for. If some of the files you are looking for show up then they must be there somewhere and it might be possible to figure out what has happened.

http://windirstat.info/index.html

http://www.uderzo.it/main_products/space_sniffer/features.html

[90-percent]

5. results

could not find any *.0001 files in Documents and settings, including subdirectories

chkdsk = no recovered 2005-2014 files

system restore - latest back up was 4/9/10 - same results as chkdsk, restored back to 2014 ver.

tried spacesniffer and windirstat and also had no luck.

THIS IS TRULY A WEIRD ONE, ISN'T IT?

Thanks again for your help. This problem is incomprehensible and appears to be almost unheard of!

jim

[ManiacJoe]

6. At a quick read, this sounds like personal accounts are turned on.

She installs apps and saves data in her account. You log in as you, and you cannot see her "stuff".