Power outage, after restart most files gone

This morning while in the middle of web surfing we had a 6 second power outage. When I restarted my computer, almost everything was gone. I tried to do a system restore which failed. The odd thing about the files lost is most of the files are new ones but I still have a few things recently downloaded. Awhile ago I copied all my wedding pictures to a disc but hadn't done so with my childrens baby pictures, now my baby pics are gone but my wedding pics are back..?? My whole address book is gone. When we bought this computer the store never gave us the original Windows XP disc and now I am at a complete loss. please please help!!!! Thank You Thank You!!!! thank you both for your help. Turns out that when I looked for the files under safe mode, they were there so I looked under regular mode and found everything. Looks as though what happen was my computer was returned to a "new user" stage. So after all, it looks like all I have lost is everything from my email including my contacts which I can live with. So thanks again!!!!

Hi Camae,

to the forum, but indeed sorry that you have this stress with loosing your files and folders .

I don't think this will help, but Recuva is a good program to try although I have not had need to do so as I have Ghost 12 on this PC. Acronis Image on my Laptop and although they both cost $'s, it is well worth it in the end.

Regarding Recuva, I have seen many posts where it is successful, but each issue is different so it maybe worth trying.

Did you have any backup at all other than CD's? if not a very risky business to be sure.

Regarding your Windows OS, it is against the law here in Australia not to supply the OS CD along with the Driver CD when selling a computer..Can you go back to where you purchased the computer and request the OS CD etc……I would.

The other item I would suggest for you to look into would be a UPS… Uninterrupted Power Supply. This would protect you from these issues if installed in the future.

Post back if you need more assistance, there are good forums soley for Ghost and Acronis that I can help you wilh if you decide to go down that route, but in the meantime good luck in recovering your items if it is at all possible.

kind regards,

Camae, try entering chkdsk c: /f /r from Start / Run. When prompted to allow this to happen on the next boot, reply Y, then reboot.

Let chkdsk complete uninterrupted. This may take 30 minutes or more, depending on the size of the hard drive so be patient.

You could also try booting to Safe Mode by pressing F8 during when you boot, then login as Administrator (no password unless you added one). See if you can see the files by opening My Computer and browsing the C:\Documents and Settings\youuserid folders.