PLEASE HELP! Files disappeared/deleted by XP Pro

[Hardy]

Yesterday I had to push the reset button in WinXP Pro because the system hung (no surprise - it's XP)

Today I discovered that my games-dir was almost gone! Several GB just disappeared. Some dirs were gone, some were still there, but only a few little files in them (files that were changed lately).

The weird thing: I have Norton Protection running on my system, and I opened the list of protected files (deleted files are protected so they can be restored later). And there were the files! As if I deleted them with my own hands! But obviously I didn't. The bad thing: Norton Protection was set to use only 1% of the harddisk space, so only 600 MB were rescued.

Do you have an idea what I can do?

By the way: There are already some other filesystem problems (e.g. a filename without a file), but stupid scandisk reports that everything is ok.
So I'm not really surprised about the mentioned file loss.

BUT PLEASE, I NEED HELP!

(Aaaaargh - Windows XP sucks!) 😡
Can I downgrade it to Windows 2000? Maybe just install it over XP Pro?

 

[AmarSingh]

heres what i suggest: update your virus definitions and do a full scan of all files (not just program files). Sounds like the work of a virus to me

 

[gothic]

There is always unwritten data in the systems cache (memory), and when you shutdown normally this gets written to the disk. When you have to do a reset there is the tendency to lose the data that was in the cache, this can effect quite large chunks !!

In the past I have lost entire partitions this way.

TOK😡

 

[Hardy]

No virus.
I'm beginning to think that the evil Windows GUI was the problem. You know? You press a key and suddenly Windows opens a new windows and applies the keypress (e.g. DEL) to the new window - something like this.
And you don't realize that you're erasing your harddisk.

Microsoft ist the first software company that created an artificial intelligence. and it is evil. There are countless examples that Windows is optimized for maximum frustration.

 

[grapeApe]

There is something in norton that automatically delete certain files that are not used often. I had a similar problem untill I disabled it. Try this first

 

[TechTodd]

i love how people load crap like norton on thier systems and then blame windows and Microsoft when their system gets hosed. DON"T USE NORTON!!! its resource hogging invasive crap. if u need virus protection, just goto www.antivirus.com for a free online scanner. get zonealarm or sygate for free if you need a firewall.

 

[gothic]

Here here !!

 

[Hardy]

Hey, without Norton I would have lost ALL files.

Today the same happened again. I installed Half-Life yesterday. Today I ran scandisk at bootup, and again, half of the game files and several other games were gone, but listed in Norton Protection.
Maybe scandisk thought there was a problem and deleted the files. The system rebooted after scandisk finished the scan, so I think scandisk did something.

Stupid Windows! Obvious filesystem problems are not found, but some hidden problems appear again and again. Deleting my files again and again will definitely not solve the problem. 😡

 

[grapeApe]

Try this article about theNorton recycle bin
it might me helpful

 

[Hardy]

The link doesn't work.