Kind of a weird problem. Files lost during cut/paste to another folder.

So this is what happened. I went to my computer, and then to drive C. Then I right clicked and did "stack by type" I went to PDF files, and then cut everything there. Then I tried to paste the files to a PDF folder on the desktop. I did this to get all the PDF files on my PC in one place.

Well my computer crashed during this, so now I can't find my pdf files. The funny thing is they show up on search, and they show their old location. For example c:/windows/c/folder/filename.pdf but when I try to open the file I get the message, "There was an error opening this document. This file cannot be found" when I go to the file location the folder is empty.

I've tried recuva, and that hasn't helped. Is there anything I can do, or are my pdfs lost forever?

Welcome
We have an excellent thread on the subject, perhaps one of the ideas may work. It is a definitive thread, if the solutions do not work, you may be out of luck.
I think the most potential would be to download Shadow Explorer and try to find a shadow copy.
http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/286641-i-have-lost-critical-files-help.html