Member Avatar for beckybee

Hi

2 days ago i turned my laptop on and the desktop had changed to the acer default one which i thought was odd, when i checked in my documents it was empty - i have lost all my photos, music and files! I have tried to do a system restore to different dates before it happened but it just says nothing has changed!

I don't know what to do next? Any ideas what could be wrong and how i get my files back???

Thanks

Becky

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by caperjack

Dani AI

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Good troubleshooting from — this looks like the common case where Windows has opened a different (or temporary) user profile, so the desktop and Documents appear empty even though the original files are still on the drive. In many of these situations the data is intact under the original user folder; it just isn’t being presented because the profile that normally points to it failed to load.

If the files are present, copy them immediately to an external disk before doing anything else. Then check the System event log for profile-related errors and run a disk check to rule out filesystem corruption. If a user profile is corrupt you can either create a new Windows account and copy the data across, or repair the profile entry in the registry (back up the registry first and look for the SID entries under the ProfileList key that point to the old profile). If you are not comfortable with the registry step, creating a new account and migrating data is safer.

If files are actually missing, stop using the laptop to avoid overwriting recoverable data. Remove the drive or boot from rescue media and run a reputable file-recovery tool (for example Recuva or PhotoRec/TestDisk) or have a technician image the drive and work from the image. After recovery, set up a simple backup plan (external drive or cloud) and monitor disk health so the same scare does not happen again. Glad to see got back in — these steps help prevent and recover from the same problem in the future.

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Member Avatar for caperjack

did you check in mycomputer ,if you have address bar put this in,"C:\Documents and Settings " with out the quotes and see if your old user acct is still there and if you stuff is no address bar ,just navigate to documents and settings

Member Avatar for beckybee

thanks it worked!!! :)

Member Avatar for caperjack

thanks it worked!!! :)

your welcome ,if you use the windows key and L ,do you get option to go into another acct.

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