Disk Cleanup...everything gone (repost)

[Guest]

I posted this last night but being the day after Christmas I think it got
bumped before many people read it so I'm reposting hoping for more help...

I ran disk cleanup today. I stopped it because it was taking too long and
when I cancelled I came to find out it had deleted 10GB of information
including all my personal pictures, etc. I am still not entirely sure of the
damage suffice to say my start menu is nearly empty and while most of my
programs are on my C drive, they cannot be accessed from the start menu any
longer, I only get empty folders.

I clicked, for the first time, an option in disk cleanup that said "Catalog
files for the Content Indexer" and was large. It said it was safe but this
is the option that started ruining things.

Can anybody help? I'm running XP Pro and Have Norton AV 2005 which was
updated on the 22nd of December...the most recent update.

 

[Malke]

I posted this last night but being the day after Christmas I think it
got bumped before many people read it so I'm reposting hoping for more
help...

I ran disk cleanup today. I stopped it because it was taking too long
and when I cancelled I came to find out it had deleted 10GB of
information
including all my personal pictures, etc. I am still not entirely sure
of the damage suffice to say my start menu is nearly empty and while
most of my programs are on my C drive, they cannot be accessed from
the start menu any longer, I only get empty folders.

I clicked, for the first time, an option in disk cleanup that said
"Catalog
files for the Content Indexer" and was large. It said it was safe but
this is the option that started ruining things.

Can anybody help? I'm running XP Pro and Have Norton AV 2005 which
was updated on the 22nd of December...the most recent update.

I've never seen this happen before, but here are a few things to try:

1. Do a System Restore to before the problem. Do nothing else on the
drive.

2. If System Restore doesn't work, then you will probably wind up
reinstalling Windows. You could start with a Repair Install first and
see if that fixes things. HOWEVER, since you apparently didn't back up
your data, you need to rescue that data first before you do anything
else.

There is no way for me to tell how skilled you are from your post.
Therefore, although I'll give you some ideas for data recovery, if you
aren't skilled and the data is important, I strongly recommend that you
take the machine to a good local computer shop - not a BestBuy or
CompUSA type of store - and have them do it for you. Ways to recover
data:

1. If the machine has two cd drives, one of which is a burner, boot with
Knoppix. Knoppix is a Linux distro that comes on cd (www.knoppix.net).
Knoppix may be able to see the missing data - if it does, you can use
the k3b program to burn the data to cd's.

2. If Knoppix can't see the data or #1 isn't feasible, you can run data
recovery software on the drive - *not* by installing it, but by running
it outside the operating system. I use Ontrack's Easy Recovery Pro, but
it is expensive. A good computer shop will have something like this.

3. If #1 and #2 don't work, there are professional data recovery firms
such as DriveSavers (www.drivesavers.com). Their services are not
inexpensive, but only you can determine the value of your data.

After you've retrieved your data, then you can try the Repair Install:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm - Repair Install
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install

Good luck, and if you need more help post back.

Malke