Program removal attempt seems to delete all Program Files

[Guest]

I attempted to download and install Norton Antivirus 8. It looked like it
was processing and then received an error message - something like unexpected
result or something. I decided to try Norton AV 7.6. It was partially through
the install and a warning popped up and said something like incompatible or
older file (do not remember the filename). It gave the option to continue or
cancel. I selected cancel.
At some point the Norton Updater was installed - every so often a dialog
would pop up and say can't run Updater as Norton not installed.
I went into add/remove programs to remove the Updater and found 2 entries
for Norton - the Updater and then one for NAV 7.6. Uninstalled the Updater
with seemingly no problems. Attempted to uninstall the other one. After a
short time, the PC froze up. I did ctrl-alt-delete and it showed that the
process had stopped responding. Attempted to stop the task. Computer was
restarted. Windows reopened and all icons on the desktop had lost their
associated picture, they were default icons. Restarted PC. Same problem.

Upon checking in windows explorer, almost every program under Program Files
had been deleted. In some cases the directory still existed, but it was
empty. In some cases the whole directory was gone. Most notably my Canon
direcory which contained my digital camera utilities along with ALL my
pictures was gone. As well, my ebooks were deleted. The list goes on.
However, when you go to add/remove programs, the programs are still in the
list along with NAV7.6 one that I was trying to remove. Also, all my files in
the My Documents folder were untouched.

Attempted to "reinstall" 2 of the "deleted" programs - Microsoft Works and
CIL Paint. Works would not reinstall, CIL did.

A friend suggested System Restore as maybe the registry or pointer to the
files was broken, but after reading about it that only seems to fix the
operating system and the OS seems to be running ok. It also said it takes
200MB free space. If I try this option, will it overwrite the disk space
being occupied by the "deleted" files making any chance of file recovery
impossible?

Please help me figure out what happened and how I can fix it.

 

[Pop]

shawna wrote:

....

A friend suggested System Restore as maybe the registry or pointer to
the files was broken, but after reading about it that only seems to
fix the operating system and the OS seems to be running ok.

Umm, it was still decent advice. That won't bring back any actually deleted
files, but it will straighten out anything that was screwed up in the system
settings that occurred after the time/date you restore to, which is entirely
possible given your description.

Have you tried recovering any of the missing files from the Recycle Bin?
They might still be there and easy to recover with Recycle Bin's recover
feature. Recover ONLY files you are SURE are data, NOT system files, unless
you know exactly what you are doing.

It also

said it takes 200MB free space. If I try this option, will it
overwrite the disk space being occupied by the "deleted" files making
any chance of file recovery impossible?

Maybe, maybe not; depends on a lot of things.

If you are using that PC to write this email or have done anythng else on
it, it's likely the data has been overwritten anyway. Whenever you lose
files, you should Shut Down IMMEDIATELY and get a friend or someone to help
you find an undelete program if you don't already have one. Had you checked
the Recycle Bin, and they're listed there, you probably can/could have
gotten the files back with no problem. If you're short on drive space
though, even files in Recycle start to be overwritten, so it should have
been the VERY FIRST thing you looked at AFTER you planned a recovery
strategy and had the program ready to go.

Did you buy that CD retail that has NAV, or is it a copy? If it's a copy,
you're probably down the tubes. If you did buy it, did you call Symantec
yet? If ytou didn't buy it, then call them anyway <g>.

Pop

 

[Guest]

thanks, Pop. I had checked the Recycle Bin, there's nothing in there. Hard
drive had plenty of free space.

I'm using a different PC to write these posts. It was actually a corporate
copy of NAV from work that we were supposed to be able to use for home use as
well. I tried my work helpline, no luck there. I took a look on the Symantec
site and couldn't find any related issues.

Trying to decide now if I run System Restore first and hope it doesn't mess
things up further, or try a file recovery program, get my data files, save
them elsewhere and then try System Restore. Suggestions?

Still also looking for a plausible theory as to what happened...

 

[Guest]

if it was me,i would try to use the system restore program,i should have
saved any files from back before u changed things around,it automatically
saves itself every once in a while so thats what i would do,also i had norton
antivirus and it messed up my computer to when deleted it,so maybe u dont
wanna install it again if u get if fixed,u could go to my computer then click
c: drive then program files and look for norton files,or click search for
files on the search option on the main desktop screen

 

[Guest]

Tried the System Restore. It restored the directory structure, but not the
links to the files. System restore doesn't save your personal data, only
system information. Tried a program to recover the files (recovermyfiles). It
seemed to find some of my pictures, but not sure if they were ones I had
deleted (on purpose) myself some time before. It found a lot of corrupt
photos and NONE of the most recent photos that I just put on a month ago. I
have yet to pay to actually get the files back that it says it can recover.
Still considering options.
I'm wondering if since the recovery program can't find anything of my most
recent photos that it doesn't consider them to be lost or deleted, and that
some links are still broken somehow.