Updated to Windows 10, "lost" files found, now gone for good

cincodemaya · 30 Nov 2015

I updated to Windows 10 earlier today. I thought I had lost some important work files and some pics of my kiddo from the last 3 months. Found them by looking in the network folder. Copied them to the desktop to remind myself to send a copy to my external hard drive when I got home. Laptop restarted and when it came back on the files were gone. I could search for them and find them but they wouldn't open. In desperation I restored back to Windows 8 in the hopes that they would be found but they are nowhere to be seen. Don't even show up in a search. System restore shows no prior restoration points.
Please, can anyone help me? I have about 70 hours worth of work done that needs done by the end of the calendar year, work that I will have to make up on my own time and not get paid for if I can't find these files. I also have the last 3 months worth of pictures of my daughter on there, her birthday trip to the zoo, visit with my sister, things I want to put in her scrapbook. Please tell me there's a way to find these things!

I don't know a ton about computers but I will answer any questions to the best of my ability

dalchina · 30 Nov 2015

Hi, how did you restore back to Win 8? - in the expected manner using the revert to previous OS within 30days?

Problem is if your files were deleted at some stage, the disk clusters holding them may well have been overwritten by all the disk activity.

To have any chance of recovering any of them, you needed to make sure there was as little or no disk write activity as possible.

First, if the files still exist and have not been deleted, without worrying exactly where they are, get a copy of locate32 (small. free)
Locate32 Download
on a USB flash drive in this case.

Use it to create a database- it will scan your entire disk drive- then search for one of your files.
The search takes a second or less.

If your files exist and have not been deleted, you will find them quickly.

If your files have been deleted, it's a question of probability as to whether they have been overwritten or not.
Recuva (free) is good... there are many commercial ones too.
You will need to run a scan - which will take a long time- and then you need to see if your files appear in the list.

I guess you never backed the files up or used disk imaging (which creates a complete backup from which you can completely recover your PC or extract files and is VERY strongly recommended to be use regularly. - Macrium Reflect, Aomei Backupper (both free). These are things to use in the future.