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The mystery of the missing files!

NorthPole
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Registered: ‎05-07-2013

The mystery of the missing files!

I had a rather unsettling experience on Saturday, when I discovered that most of the contents of my Archive folder (in which I keep copies of installation files and suchlike) had disappeared, together with the contents of the Recycle Bin. Naturally, my first thought was a virus attack; but full scans with three anti-malware programs and my anti-virus threw up nothing significant. Moreover, I would have expected a virus to display some message demanding payment to reinstate the deleted files.
After further reflection, I decided to run CHKDSK /F, which detected and fixed over 300 file system errors. Fortunately I was able to recover the deleted Archive files from a recent backup; but I am somewhat surprised that, if file system problems were indeed the cause, Windows can silently delete files without any warning. As far as I can establish, no system files or irreplacable data have been lost; but the incident has left me feeling rather uneasy.
I should mention that I am running Windows 7 x64, and have two 1TB disks configured as a RAID 1 mirror array, which reports itself as functioning normally.
Can anyone cast any further light on what might have happened here?
11 REPLIES 11
chenks76
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Re: The mystery of the missing files!

auto system cleanup might explain the recycle bin.
but i assume you weren't actually using the recycle bin for storage? if you were then that is insanity.
NorthPole
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Re: The mystery of the missing files!

No, of course not! My point was that, as well as losing most of the files in my Archive folder, I also found the Recycle Bin was totally empty - previously there had been deleted files in it.

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Full quote of preceding post removed as per Forum rules.

Oldjim
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Re: The mystery of the missing files!

it is probable that because of the file system errors the recycle bin was corrupted and hence showed empty and if the Archive folder - was it completely empty or had you lost only some of the files/folders within it but the used size was normal  as it is possible that windows decided to make them hidden

NorthPole
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Re: The mystery of the missing files!

Oldjim, the Archive folder was missing most of its sub-folders, and most of the files from those that were still there. IIRC the total size shown for the folder was far smaller than normal.
Oldjim
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Re: The mystery of the missing files!

in which case it sounds like a corrupted file allocation table

it might be worth replacing the hard drive or at the very least back everything up to another drive

VileReynard
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Re: The mystery of the missing files!

Can Windows display the SMART info for the drive?

If so have you any bad blocks (Reallocated sector count)?

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

NorthPole
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Re: The mystery of the missing files!

The motherboard's hardware RAID utility reports both disks as 'Healthy' via SMART; and Windows' Disk Management utility (from Control Panel) also reports Drive C: as 'Healthy'.

VileReynard
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Re: The mystery of the missing files!

The errors might have happened a long time ago, if it was some time since you accessed your archives.

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

ejs
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Re: The mystery of the missing files!

The corrupted data could have happened in memory (due to a software bug or bad RAM), if that then gets written to the disk, it could result in the filesystem corruption without there being any problem with the disks themselves.

NorthPole
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Re: The mystery of the missing files!

ejs, that would be the least worst option, and hopefully a 'one-off' glitch. It certainly justifies my weekly backup routine!
VileReynard
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Re: The mystery of the missing files!

I'd definitely do a disk test of some kind.

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."