Lost folders, changed to 16KB files when XP reinstall. Please Help

[michaelvd]

Allot of the most important files of my life were lost when window XP

changed the the folders they were in to 16KB files (type of file just

say's: file, with no file extension, just like the folders with the

files in them are still there but windows dose not recognize them as

folders) This happened when I reinstalled windows, also windows said i


preformed hard disk maintenance before the install which I have not

seen before this problem. a strange thing is that only all the folder


I had moved, changed or created in the last 2 months were changed in t


16KB dead files, Please Help!, a life time of important non-profit wor


could be lost.

I got a new 180Gig hard drive 8 months ago that I formatted with two

FAT32 partitions and one was changed to NTFS when windows XP formatte


it, so I had one FAT32 partition with all my files on it and one NTFS

partition with my windows and programs on it, and it worked fine. Whe


I reinstalled windows XP on the NTFS partition first the installer sai


it preformed hard disk maintenance, I am not sure if this is what

caused it, and then I had to restart to perform the reinstall and tha


went fine and none of the old program files or folder in the NTFS

folder were changed, I just ended up with all these files lost in my

documents partition, because all the folders I had moved, changed or

created in the last 2 months were changed in to 16KB dead files.

The FAT32 and NTFS partition situation with a large hard disk most

probably caused windows to cause the problem

I dont know if this will fix it, but if a folder with a large amount o


data in it somehow was changed to not be recognized as that folder bu


a 16KB file with out extension what could I do to it to change it bac


to have folder properties.

Please be quick because I do not want to use my computer much until I

get my documents back. I changed my main document folder's name with

the most important documents I have worked on for the last 10 years,

and that was chaned to a 16KB file when I reinstalled

Please post here and email me (e-mail address removed)

 

[Malke]

Allot of the most important files of my life were lost when window XP

(snip repeat post)

You got lots of answers to this same question that you posted earlier.
If you can't find your original post, go to Google Groups Advanced
Search and look for your name in the microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
newsgroup.

Malke

 

[michaelvd]

Answer found, files regained!!! I tried to recover my files as if they
were deleted and nothing was found, I tried raw recovery and nothing
was found, I was very depressed about it all, and then some one from
OnTrack file recovery told me that windows might of turned my files in
to .chk files. and that is what had happened, and .chk files can be
recovered in most cases, I am lucky I retrieved the most important
files back.

 

[Guest]

Answer found, files regained!!! I tried to recover my files as if they were
deleted and nothing was found, I tried raw recovery and nothing was found, I
was very depressed about it all, and then some one from OnTrack file recovery
told me that windows might of turned my files in to .chk files. and that is
what had happened, and .chk files can be recovered in most cases, I am lucky
I retrieved the most important files back.