# Nearly all data, apps and shortcuts deleted!



## Drungi (Dec 20, 2014)

Hello

Yesterday i experienced something very odd. Just suddenly all my programs shut down, windows still running. I noticed that my taskbar attached programs were replaced with white blank pages. On the desktop all my shortcuts, folders and such were gone, though 2 folders remained intact but with almost evering inside deleted only 2 files inside each of those survived. To make this worse alle my windows apps is deleted except of desktop, store, onedrive and camera. Even Paint and calculator is deleted. :angry:

btw i'm runnning W8 8.1

Has anyone ever encountered this? If anyone know what happened here i will be glad to know it. 
But most importantly is there any way to recover my files? 

Cheers :grin:


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

Hi and Welcome to TSF!

You didn't happen to refresh your Windows 8 system did you?

What about a hard drive crash? New user account created?


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## Drungi (Dec 20, 2014)

Masterchiefxx17 said:


> Hi and Welcome to TSF!
> 
> You didn't happen to refresh your Windows 8 system did you?
> 
> What about a hard drive crash? New user account created?


Hi

Thank you for fast reply!

No i didn't do something like a reset or refresh. I was in task manager closing football manager 2015 because it didn't respond, and it was like right after i did that i noticed it. 

I reckon it cannot be a hard drive crash since C: seems like nothing is deleted except Users > my pc name > Documents.


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

So all of your icons, documents, and shortcuts have been deleted randomly?

See if Recuva can find anything:

https://www.piriform.com/recuva

Then you may be better off reinstall Windows since there appears to be a whole system crash due to the missing paint and calculator.


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## Rich-M (May 2, 2007)

My guess is you accidentally dragged it into another folder. Open your User name and check all the folders i.e. Downloads, Pictures etc and see if the whole folder wasn't dragged inside another one.


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## Drungi (Dec 20, 2014)

Masterchiefxx17 said:


> So all of your icons, documents, and shortcuts have been deleted randomly?
> 
> See if Recuva can find anything:
> 
> ...


As i see it, yes. 

I've tried Recuva and did find and it did recover 300.000ish files. But since the files don't get assigned to its original folders, Recuva is not the solution. :smile:

I've tried to recover my system to factory settings. Unfortunately, that didn't work either as windows is missing a required boot partition? 

So i really am stuck here :frown:

Is there
A: Anyway i can either assign recovered files to their orignal folders?
or 
B: Anyway i can make the pc want to recover?


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

No, there's no program that I know of that will return the item back to the original folder. It will only recover what was inside the folder.

You'll need a Windows installation CD to reinstall Windows.


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