All files are gone.

[Allshevski]

So, before I begin, I'm writing from my phone, please forgive me non-formatted text

 

Okay, so my mother turned on her notebook with Windows 10 on it, it requested password (I have turned logon screen through "netplwiz" metho) so I thought it was weird but entered the password and forst thing that appeared was an error that "C:\Windows\system32\*\desktop.* File could not be found, that's only thing I remember.

I tried to open Start Menu but it didn't work, then somehow managed to open file explorer and found that all libraries are empty, with blank names.

I restarted the PC hoping that it was just some error but it didn't help.

What whould I do? Is it a virus? The computer had AVG on it..

Please help..

 

 

[JakeNTech]

It's a virus, or drive failure. All you can do is reinstall windows and then back your stuff up regular.

[Darel321]

yep... or its a virus or its a hdd problem... if you dont know how to fix it then its probably better if you give it to someone who know what he's doing

[Matias_Chambers]

Take it to the store.

[TetraSky]

Are you sure she's logged into her own account and not someone else like Guest? Have you tried going into safe mode and see if you could manually find those libraries in "C:\Users\Your-Mom's-Username" instead of just trying to click on the shortcut on the left panel of File Explorer?

 

How much have you used the computer since then? Because you could recover some of the data if you didn't overwrite it. Just extract the HDD and plug it in another PC, then run something like Recuva or TestDisk.

[Allshevski]

6 hours ago, Matias_Chambers said:

Take it to the store.

This notebook is like 5 years old, was bought in a different country and stuff, also I don't trust those people. 

 

2 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Are you sure she's logged into her own account and not someone else like Guest? Have you tried going into safe mode and see if you could manually find those libraries in "C:\Users\Your-Mom's-Username" instead of just trying to click on the shortcut on the left panel of File Explorer?

 

How much have you used the computer since then? Because you could recover some of the data if you didn't overwrite it. Just extract the HDD and plug it in another PC, then run something like Recuva or TestDisk.

Thanks man, I don't currently have PC but is there something like recuva for live linux distros? I have ubuntu live lying around..

And yeah, I will do that stuff but even Skype said files were missing so I really hope they aren't encrypted or overwritten.. 

[TetraSky]

39 minutes ago, Allshevski said:

This notebook is like 5 years old, was bought in a different country and stuff, also I don't trust those people. 

 

Thanks man, I don't currently have PC but is there something like recuva for live linux distros? I have ubuntu live lying around..

And yeah, I will do that stuff but even Skype said files were missing so I really hope they aren't encrypted or overwritten.. 

TestDisk also work on Linux.

 

There's also this
http://www.system-rescue-cd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage
Which contains all the tools you could need to recover your files. (including testdisk)

then there's Ultimate BootCD
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com

Which has all you need and more.

[Allshevski]

2 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

TestDisk also work on Linux.

 

There's also this
http://www.system-rescue-cd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage
Which contains all the tools you could need to recover your files. (including testdisk)

Thanks, I will post updates as soon as I install it. Let's hope it all goes right..