Win XP Pro SP3 PC on a domain.
All desktop icons were there last night when user shut computer down at end of day.
This morning, half the icons are there, half have vanished. A lot of work has vanished (yes, they should have saved to the server........)
Documents and Settings\fred\Desktop :mad: This folder is empty. That's where the missing files/folders were.
Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop :) These are the icons that show up on the user's desktop.
No idea why Documents and Settings\fred\Desktop is empty. The files have simply vanished. The user did not accidentally delete them.
Already tried:
- Checked Recycle bin
- Searched the hard drive (including hidden files/folders)
- A couple of reboots.
- Toggled the show icons on desktop off and back on again
- Logging in to PC as administrator and looked in that folder. Still empty.
- Used the free Recuva tool - it found many deleted files, but not the ones we need, not a trace.
- Removed the hard drive, plugged it in externally to another PC to view contents.
- Malware scan with McAfee, then Malwarebytes. All clean.
Here's where it gets more interesting:
I rolled the system state back one week (System Restore) and the missing desktop FOLDERS returned, but not the files! Weird.
Can anyone suggest anything, other than suggesting the user should have backed up or saved to network?
Some of the documents do show up in My Recent Documents, but appear as shortcuts. They do not link to the actual files that are missing. The Find Target button finds nothing.
All desktop icons were there last night when user shut computer down at end of day.
This morning, half the icons are there, half have vanished. A lot of work has vanished (yes, they should have saved to the server........)
Documents and Settings\fred\Desktop :mad: This folder is empty. That's where the missing files/folders were.
Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop :) These are the icons that show up on the user's desktop.
No idea why Documents and Settings\fred\Desktop is empty. The files have simply vanished. The user did not accidentally delete them.
Already tried:
- Checked Recycle bin
- Searched the hard drive (including hidden files/folders)
- A couple of reboots.
- Toggled the show icons on desktop off and back on again
- Logging in to PC as administrator and looked in that folder. Still empty.
- Used the free Recuva tool - it found many deleted files, but not the ones we need, not a trace.
- Removed the hard drive, plugged it in externally to another PC to view contents.
- Malware scan with McAfee, then Malwarebytes. All clean.
Here's where it gets more interesting:
I rolled the system state back one week (System Restore) and the missing desktop FOLDERS returned, but not the files! Weird.
Can anyone suggest anything, other than suggesting the user should have backed up or saved to network?
Some of the documents do show up in My Recent Documents, but appear as shortcuts. They do not link to the actual files that are missing. The Find Target button finds nothing.