Hello,my apologies if this was already discussed but I searched the forum and couldn't find anything.
As the title states,on my laptop, vista erased files in my user profile while the 2 other user profiles (my gf's and the guest profiles) were basically left untouched.
I use an HP dv6500 series with Vista Ultimate, 2gb ram,160gb hd and 2.0 ghz if that helps.
For starters, let me tell you what happened.As of late I have been using the Power saver option( so that the screen brightness is dulled so that I can use it in the dark when everyone's asleep) as well as the High performance option when my gf uses it (shes addicted to the sims3 and has pulled me in too
). Normally I have it on the HP recommended option.
A few nights ago I was using my laptop and instead of shutting down I hibernated as I usually do because my gf is usually still logged in. The next morning my gf started up the laptop, and the password screen for my profile came up and she switched users and logged into hers. Then later she hibernated as well, and we left to run some errands with a friend.
When we got back my friend wanted to use the laptop to play online chess(yahoo games to be exact) so I just put in my password to log into my profile so he could play without any issues if he needed to (since my profile is the administrator he wouldnt need me to put in passwords if he had to download or upgrade any software). When I came to check up on him I saw that my wallpaper, the folders on the desktop as well as my windows sidebar settings were all gone. At first I thought he signed out and went to the guest profile but that wasn't the case. Needless to say I was p**ssed and decided to look at it later.
When I did I noticed that the Documents, Pictures, Downloads, Videos folders were all empty, so I signed out and checked the other users. To my surprise my gf's as well as the guest profiles were left untouched, in fact the website my gf had left up was still there, the desktop remained the same and her windows side bar was ok, and her Pictures, Documents folders etc remained untouched. same with the guest profile.
In addition to my pictures,Documents folders etc some the the programs I downloaded were also erased (the shortcuts on desktop and program files), ie itunes, youcam, and I also had to reinstall windows media player. This is constant throughout the entire laptop. The only programs that remained were skype,the sims 3 and irfanview (although its no on the desktop or program files, but when I open a picture file or folder it shows up when I right click).
Also what I thought was pretty weird was that the recycle bin still had all the crap that I deleted from before, so what I did was, I restored a video I had downloaded to the downloads folder then did a search for the file name and found it in Downloads in the user folder equivalent in c:/Documents and Settings/users/Stephen (I'm not sure if that the exact path to the folder but you get the point). There I found all of my files ( excluding the programs erased that were mentioned previously).
1. Can someone tell me what happened because I'm confused as h*ll and would love to find out the cause so that I can try to prevent it in the future.
2. Why was it that the Users folders were still ok and if this were to happen again will these folders retain the stuff that I save from now on and erase the old stuff or will it keep the new and the old, or will it just not save any of the new stuff I save.
Thanks for your time and help and my apologies if I rambled on a bit.
Stephen
As the title states,on my laptop, vista erased files in my user profile while the 2 other user profiles (my gf's and the guest profiles) were basically left untouched.
I use an HP dv6500 series with Vista Ultimate, 2gb ram,160gb hd and 2.0 ghz if that helps.
For starters, let me tell you what happened.As of late I have been using the Power saver option( so that the screen brightness is dulled so that I can use it in the dark when everyone's asleep) as well as the High performance option when my gf uses it (shes addicted to the sims3 and has pulled me in too
). Normally I have it on the HP recommended option.A few nights ago I was using my laptop and instead of shutting down I hibernated as I usually do because my gf is usually still logged in. The next morning my gf started up the laptop, and the password screen for my profile came up and she switched users and logged into hers. Then later she hibernated as well, and we left to run some errands with a friend.
When we got back my friend wanted to use the laptop to play online chess(yahoo games to be exact) so I just put in my password to log into my profile so he could play without any issues if he needed to (since my profile is the administrator he wouldnt need me to put in passwords if he had to download or upgrade any software). When I came to check up on him I saw that my wallpaper, the folders on the desktop as well as my windows sidebar settings were all gone. At first I thought he signed out and went to the guest profile but that wasn't the case. Needless to say I was p**ssed and decided to look at it later.
When I did I noticed that the Documents, Pictures, Downloads, Videos folders were all empty, so I signed out and checked the other users. To my surprise my gf's as well as the guest profiles were left untouched, in fact the website my gf had left up was still there, the desktop remained the same and her windows side bar was ok, and her Pictures, Documents folders etc remained untouched. same with the guest profile.
In addition to my pictures,Documents folders etc some the the programs I downloaded were also erased (the shortcuts on desktop and program files), ie itunes, youcam, and I also had to reinstall windows media player. This is constant throughout the entire laptop. The only programs that remained were skype,the sims 3 and irfanview (although its no on the desktop or program files, but when I open a picture file or folder it shows up when I right click).
Also what I thought was pretty weird was that the recycle bin still had all the crap that I deleted from before, so what I did was, I restored a video I had downloaded to the downloads folder then did a search for the file name and found it in Downloads in the user folder equivalent in c:/Documents and Settings/users/Stephen (I'm not sure if that the exact path to the folder but you get the point). There I found all of my files ( excluding the programs erased that were mentioned previously).
1. Can someone tell me what happened because I'm confused as h*ll and would love to find out the cause so that I can try to prevent it in the future.
2. Why was it that the Users folders were still ok and if this were to happen again will these folders retain the stuff that I save from now on and erase the old stuff or will it keep the new and the old, or will it just not save any of the new stuff I save.
Thanks for your time and help and my apologies if I rambled on a bit.
Stephen
