folder entirely unreadable

[Adrian Bailey]

My laptop (using Windows XP) got infected a few months ago and I haven't
been using it. I've just got round to disinfecting it, using HijackThis and
AVG, and it seemed to be clear. Today when I turned it on, it said I should
check the disks for consistency. Immediately it started giving "folder
entirely unreadable" messages and removing the contents of what are in fact
photos of our baby. I switched the machine off and back on again without
doing the consistency test. When I open the two folders that have been
emptied, a message tells me the drive (D is unformatted and asks me
whether I want to reformat it.

The drive and the (other) folders seem actually to be okay, so why did I get
this problem? Why does my machine think the D drive is unreadable? (The hard
disk is split into a C and a D drive.)

And how can I get back the two lots of photos that have been deleted?

Thanks, Adrian

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Multiposted. You also need to decide which OS you use. Here you write

- My laptop (using Windows XP) and in several other posts you say
- My laptop (using Windows 2000)

Now which one is it?

 

[Poprivet]

Multiposted. You also need to decide which OS you use. Here you write

- My laptop (using Windows XP) and in several other posts you say
- My laptop (using Windows 2000)

Now which one is it?

I noticed that, too. Sounds like a come-on, doesn't it?

Pop`

 

[ric]

My laptop (using Windows XP) got infected a few months ago and I haven't
been using it. I've just got round to disinfecting it, using HijackThis and
AVG, and it seemed to be clear. Today when I turned it on, it said I should
check the disks for consistency. Immediately it started giving "folder
entirely unreadable" messages and removing the contents of what are in fact
photos of our baby. I switched the machine off and back on again without
doing the consistency test. When I open the two folders that have been
emptied, a message tells me the drive (D is unformatted and asks me
whether I want to reformat it.

The drive and the (other) folders seem actually to be okay, so why did I get
this problem? Why does my machine think the D drive is unreadable? (The hard
disk is split into a C and a D drive.)

And how can I get back the two lots of photos that have been deleted?

Thanks, Adrian

When you say "removing the contents", what actually happened? That
and the "entirely unreadable" bit doesn't sound like what Windows will
do if it encounters file corruption, and is making me think virus/
trojan.
Originally I was thinking that you'd got a plain and simple failing
hard disk, but the specifics of what happened don't really sound like
that, if that's actually what was displayed on screen.

What you do next is up to you: if they're irreplacable pictures of
your kids, then go to a data recovery specialist. In the UK www.retrodata.co.uk
are excellent and cheap, but YMMV.
If they're not important enough to spend money on then I'd try the
following:
1) boot off a live CD (knoppix, BartPE, Ultimate Boot CD) and see what
you can find on the disk. Copy anything you can read to USB pendrive,
or CD, or to another PC via a network.
2) remove the hard disk and put it in a USB enclosure and attach to
another PC. Copy over anything you can find.

If either 1) or 2) get you the files you want, then I'd either replace
the HDD in the laptop or reinstall Windows and check for any disk
errors. Keep an eye on the event logs for any disk I/O errors.
If 1) or 2) don't get you what you need then I'd clone the disk to
another drive and run SpinRite and similar data recovery tools to see
what came up.

If all this sounds too technical then go see your local geek and see
what they can do. I woudn't boot the laptop again until you've
exhausted these options in case it's malware that's deleting your
files on boot.

Ric