Desktop Destroyed...

Hello tech fellows. I have moderate computer knowledge, but I'm stumped. I've read quite a bit on this issue and I don't want to "make an sudden moves."

I'm on Vista Home Premium 64bit w/ a Dell XPS 1340 laptop.

I recently got a new net provider (Clear) and service was great at first then it turned to crap. Being a bit obsessive, I read as much as I could about any way to fix it. In the process I ruined my shell folders which house like 90% of my files. I used a program called TCP Optimizer and it changed my registry. Upon rebooting, I got the temporary profile. I thought my system had been wiped til I got the popup saying it just didn't load correctly.

I rebooted again and still all of my settings were gone along with my desktop and "documents." I searched and found them in some temp folder. I then copied them back to where they belonged. I accepted that the registry may have ruined all my settings and restarted reconfiging everything. I was happy to still have my files and programs. After doing some more reading about my shoddy ISP I realized that I hadn't done a full shutdown and unplugging of the modem, so I did.

This time when I came back my files were gone again and all I could find were shortcuts in the recent folder. Some search results brought up completely blank and unclickable files. The desktop and documents folders were empty and the C:\users\temp folder was gone. Fearing the worst I did some more reading about shell folders and secret admin. I enabled secret admin and made another account to copy ntuser.dat, ntuser.ini, and ntuser.dat.log... but I had to 2 log files so I digressed from that. Also I made hidden files/folders visible.

Anyway, I downloaded Recuva and salvaged "some things," but out of everything that was of the utmost importance (most recent files) about half of it was unrecoverable or in a poor state. I have no system restores (I always thought these were automatic... I guess not).

Here are my questions...

1. Is there any other way to undo any of this?

2. Is it possible to repair partially overwritten files (this blows my mind... Recuva said that certain files were overwritten by completely seemingly unrelated files and programs.)

3. My shell folders read like this in the registry... "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop" is this right? Or should it say something else.

Overall, I understand that files can be lost, but it really stings that out of all the meaningless replaceable stuff I have, the things I really need may be gone. I'm a digital artist and I've lost about 50 hours worth of art. There were things I just finished yesterday. (All of this happened yesterday) Aside from that, there are countless random files that are deemed unrecoverable. And lastly, my hard disk space reflects that the files (270GB worth!) really are gone.

Thanks to anyone who can shed some light.

Not really knowing the cause, I would try a sytem restore from before the problem and see what happens.

Go back to the point prior to TC Optimizer.

For some reason, my first and only system restore is from today about 3am so I tried it. I don't know why there weren't others. I've had this laptop for about 8 months. All the system restore did was kill my browsers. Neither FF or IE worked so I system restored back to later today 1pm. Again, my profile didn't load correctly so I just took some time and saved what I could with Recuva. But I would still like to get things back in order if possible. If the system is unstable, I don't want to do anything productive and risk losing it.

And as for TCP Optimizer, surprisingly enough Recuva couldn't find it (among other things). I guess I'm still thankful that my programs are in tact. I'll check back if in case any one gets any ideas or if I find a solution. Also, I followed the shell folder guide and still the files were missing. I only have 1 folder in the C Drive where I keep things and it's perfectly fine after all of this. I guess that's the lesson to be learned. However, I may just get Windows 7 in a couple of weeks.

Thanks.

When you go into system restrore (try again) make sure you check the box to show more than a week old.

The only way to truly "delete" a file is to overwrite it- the only way you may be able to recover files that have been overwritten is via a professional data recovery specialist.

I assume that you wiped out your shadow copies- so the chances of restoring is probably slim to none.

I "hope" that you had the foresight to create data backups, and even a full system (complete pc backup)- if you did then just restore that.

Otherwise, restore your system from scratch from a installation DVD.

Next time, use Vista's file backup program and backup files weeekly, and use Paragon's free disk imaging software to create a complete pc backup every few months (i do one every six)


See:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/211382-vista-backup-recovery-disks.html

This is all I get... no check box.





I wish I had shadow copies. I didn't find about them til after the fact. It's not standard in my version of vista.

If it were possible go back and change what happened in the past, so that this problem could be avoided I would advise on how to do it.


I cannot do that, but for the future, get this free software from Paragon. You make a copy of your Hard Drive once a week/month. Next time you have a problem, you have a current copy to replace the OS>
Free Backup Software: Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Free Edition - Overview