Files gone from desktop?

[mikehende]

Guy with a laptop says all of his pics and music which he had on his desktop suddenly vanished, they are not in the recycle bin and since he did not delete them, any ideas please?

 

[AWS]

Did he by chance change the desktop settings to hide icons?

 

[mikehende]

He said he didn't do anything out of the norm and suspects virus

 

[allheart55 (Cindy E)]

In that case, it sounds as if it could be malware to me.

I'd do some scans first and see what you come up with.
You may want to have Pete take a look, Mike.

 

[mikehende]

I don't have the guy's unit, he just called in to make the inquiry, thing is he wants to recover the files more than he wants to fix the unit so if the files are nowhere to be found on the unit then wouldn't make sense I ask him to bring it in.

 

[allheart55 (Cindy E)]

Does he have any icons or folders on his desktop at all or did everything disappear?

 

[mikehende]

He says there some icons

 

[allheart55 (Cindy E)]

So his icons (shortcuts) are there but any folders containing documents and pictures are gone?

 

[mikehende]

No, not the missing data icons, just osme other icons which were there before, he did not specify exactly which icons are there.

 

[Plastic Nev]

Providing he knows what the titles are of the files, he could try a normal search for them, if they haven't been deleted, they should show up somewhere.

Actually, the little doggy on XP search is one of those silly things I miss in W7.

Nev.

 

[mikehende]

I am wondering if he did a system restore would that restore deleted files?

 

[allheart55 (Cindy E)]

System Restore doesn't usually affect files, Mike.

 

[mikehende]

That's what I figured so no hope for this guy I think to recover those missing files.

 

[Mommalina]

Providing he knows what the titles are of the files, he could try a normal search for them, if they haven't been deleted, they should show up somewhere.

Actually, the little doggy on XP search is one of those silly things I miss in W7.

Nev.

Mike, I don't think I'd give up until trying Search as
recommended by Nev! Over the years, I've had
good luck with that.

 

[mikehende]

I had advised the owner to try that so it's up to him.

 

[starbuck]

Hi Mike,

Haven't seen it around for awhile, but there is The FakeHDD rogue malware that deletes the following folders and stores them into a numbered folder under %Temp%\smtmp:
Start Menu
Quick Launch
Documents
Desktop

If the temp files are removed..... so will the smtmp folder containing these.
So don't run any temp file cleaners until you are sure of what you are dealing with.

 

[mikehende]

The guy did not bring his machine to me pete, he was simply trying to see if there is a way to recover the missing files.

 

[Kick]

Mike, if your contact did actually accidentally delete the files, a file recovery program such as Recuva (http://filehippo.com/download_recuva/ or https://www.piriform.com/recuva/download) or its portable version which can be run from a usb memory stick (https://www.piriform.com/recuva/features/portable-version) may be able to recover them. The sooner this is tried, the better as delay means the deleted files space on the drive will be overwritten so much by subsequent file saving activity that that the original deleted files become unrecoverable.

Good luck, Kick.