Hello,
Yesterday I did a routine CClean operation on my W7P desktop. Because I clean frequently, I usually see only a few proposed deletions in the Analyze phase; but yesterday, I saw 300MB of proposed deletions.
I thought that big number was odd. But I was in a hurry (famous last words), so I pulled the trigger anyway. Shortly thereafter, I couldn't find the Excel tax file I had been working on, even with desktop search. And all my Windows/Office history was gone, so I couldn't use it to find my file.
I first wondered if there had been some sort of file/directory corruption, so I ran a full chkdsk scan. Nothing found. I then did a full virus scan, also with nothing found.
Next, I downloaded and installed Recuva, and searched for recoverable files. I found nothing that seemed relevant.
By then, I was sufficiently panicked that that I went to the System Restore function, to see what Restore Points were available. ALL my Restore Points had been blown away! (Note: I use very conservative option selections with the CClean function. I only select about a third of them; and in any case, I don't think deleting Restore Points is on the menu.)
I then went back to manual directory searching, and found my missing tax file. It had been saved to the wrong directory. (That was probably my cockpit error; but I still don't know why Desktop Search couldn't find it.)
Finally, I looked up instructions for manually creating a new Restore Point in W7P. The instructions were rather arcane, and not intuitive; but they seemed to work. I now have one Restore Point, and the system seems to be operating well.
All this was a major scare, however, and even had me thinking about ransomware.
I'm wondering if any others have experienced something like this, and whether I need to be fearful of CCleaner malfunctions going forward.
Thanks, Ed