Disk Cleanup...everything gone

[Guest]

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.

 

[guestuser]

First do not install any applications or download any files of any kind. Do
not run any programs that will write to the hard drive. Do not use your
system at all, if possible. Anything written to the hard drive may be
overwriting your data, if it is still there. Obviously what has happened to
your data should not have even been possible much less happened in the first
place. I would be very suspicious of a virus or worm infection or a Trojan
of some kind.

I take it your hard drive properties indicates it is now some 10GB smaller
in used space? If your programs are still residing in the Program Files
directory then the shortcuts to them can still be restored. You have bigger
problems than just getting your program shortcuts back in the Start>All
Programs menu. There are data recovery applications available, some are
freeware, just Google for "data recovery". There are also businesses that
specialize in data recovery, but this can be very expensive, in the
thousands of dollars.

See if you can find a data recovery application for a reasonable price and
cross your fingers. If the data is truly lost, and I hope you can find it
quickly and intact, you would be well advised to back up any remaining data
and reformat and reinstall Windows. Good luck!