Lost 'My Documents'

[Chrissy Boy]

Hi, I think I am a lost cause but today I have noticed that all my files in My Documents have disappeared except for Updater5 ( which i cannot ever remember seeing) and My music which has lost all the files. There is a funny looking Desktop icon in there also, which when I open looks like old typewriting and the first line says [deleteOnCopy], which doesn't sound hopeful. My wife's files in her document folder are fine and I have just saved them to disk. I am running Microsoft XP. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[bongoboy]

firstly try a system restore if you havn't already to a time before this happened.
failing that try googling for a free doc recovery tool.

[ACtheTROLL]

DON'T system restore .... my documents isn't affected by restore ..... you could well mess things up more

You must be an administrator for most of this.

first & easiest
right click on your recycle bin
select "explore"
..... see anything?

if not

open my computer
Tools | Folder options | view |
in advanced settings ... tick the six options (after auto search)
then tick "show hidden files"
and untick the next two "Hide" options
ok all that.

goto Start | search
tick advanced options ....
tick the top 3 "search" options.

now ... in the search for files and folders
we need to search for a file type you have stored
so .... if you have "DOC" files
enter *.doc
Excel files *.xls
(get the idea) ... or if you know you have a file called
"bills and payments"
search bills*.*