Upgraded to WinXP SP3 & IE8, Desktop & MyDocs Files "Gone"

[aaron95133]

I upgraded my company laptop to Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Internet
Explorer 8. When I did this, all the files on my desktop and My
Documents folder "disappeared." I rolled back the install with System
Restore, but this only resulted in restoring some folders to my
desktop, but no documents. Nothing was restored to My Documents. I've
tried looking for missing and deleted files with freeware data
recovery tools like Pandora Recovery and PC Inspector, with no luck.
My IT person seems at a loss. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[DL]

You have a post on this yesterday, with many replies, what makes you think
you will now get other replies.
Restore your data from backups

 

[aaron95133]

Considering that your best input both times is "restore from backup",
I need another option.

If I had copies of the data, I wouldn't need to restore it with a
software workaround.

 

[Jim]

Considering that your best input both times is "restore from backup",
I need another option.

If I had copies of the data, I wouldn't need to restore it with a
software workaround.

You have a post on this yesterday, with many replies, what makes you think

you will now get other replies.

Restore your data from backups

There are companies who specialize in recovering data (I don't have a list),
but you should be aware to bring lots of money to the table.
In addition, the longer you use this computer, the less likely you are to
recover the data.
Jim

 

[aaron95133]

Yeah, it's probably already too late. The System Restore point is 5
days ago when all this happened. The only good thing is I've only had
this computer less than 3 months and didn't lose that much data
considering the worst case scenario. At least my department is hyper-
cognizant about actively backing up our stuff now. So yeah I will
probably give up the ghost and just re-create everything. You're
right, data recovery is big money business.

 

[Daave]

From my Expierence ... Never put anything important in the MY
documents Directory . System Restore Has wiped out that secret
partition MANY MANY TIMES .

My experience is the exact opposite. SR may delete certain kinds of
files, but it won't do so if those files are in the My Documents
directory, and this is by design.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

From my Expierence ... Never put anything important in the MY documents
Directory . System Restore Has wiped out that secret partition MANY MANY
TIMES .

First, the My Documents structure isn't a partition, secret or otherwise.

Second, System Restore won't do what you describe.

You may be having system problems, but they're not likely coming from System
Restore.

Have you ever noticed that in Windows Explorer , You have 2 MY documents?

No, because you don't. You just don't understand what you see.

There is only *one* My Documents folder structure per user account.

one is on the C drive and the other is Not on the C drive

They are "both" in exactly the same place - it's one folder structure,
located on

systemdrive:\Documents and Settings\User Account\My Documents.

and Both have the Same files .

That's because there is only one.

And if you delete a certian file out of One it is also Gone in the other
Directory

Because there is only one.

You are mistaking a shortcut for a separate folder.

-pk

 

[gromyko]

Missing Documents After Upgrade

This happened to me, too. I have two partitions on my hard drive. The C drive is where all the system stuff is, and the D drive is where My Documents, etc. are. Sometimes there is some confusion with applications that do not recognize the possibility of multiple partitions, and even the system has some confusion with this. For instance, my Desktop is on the C drive, regardless of My Documents being on the D drive. Apparently, even Service Pack upgrades get confused. I also have an Administrator account and a User account.

Is it possible that you have the same setup?

After the upgrade, my User account was incredibly barren - the Desktop background was gone, so were my Quick Launch icons on the Toolbar. The files I had sitting on my Desktop were gone. My Documents was gone! After a few minutes, I realized that it thought that my User account's "My Documents" folder was on the C drive. That is, when I clicked My Documents, it opened a folder on the C drive that had basically nothing in it. (The upgrade apparently created this, in a TEMP subfolder in the "Documents and Settings" folder.) A quick search showed that my original data was all intact in its location on the D drive.

To fix this, I simply opened the D drive folder, copied the address exactly, right-clicked on the "My Documents" icon in the Start menu, selected Properties, clicked the "Target" tab, and replaced the "Target folder location" with the desired D drive address, which happens to be "D:\Documents and Settings\me\My Documents". After that, I clicked OK, then Logged Off. When I logged back on, my settings had been restored. Desktop background, files, and My Documents were all as expected.

This process was quite simple, but somewhat stress-inducing. Hopefully there aren't more surprises waiting for me out there.