Weird data recovery issue

[Vajradhara]

...This isn't quite security but I hope someone knows something about it.

 

About a year ago I tried to update Windows XP to SP3. This resulted in a spectacular crash that made it so I could only boot into safe mode. My computer is (or was) one of those off-the-shelf HP machines that came with its own backup software and partition, so I restored the system from that and never bothered with SP3 again. Unfortunately when I did that it created a new user account for me, and made my old My Documents folder inaccessible. I asked their support staff about it and they said that the data that was in it couldn't be recovered. Great, there was a lot personal stuff in there.

 

I just assumed it had all been erased, since looking at it in the directory browser says that it's size is 0 bytes, and I can't access it or delete it. But at the end of last year I started using Avast, and when I run virus scans with it, I noticed that it was scanning files from that directory, ones that Windows thinks are gone forever. When I scanned that folder in particular, it said there's about 22 GB worth of stuff in there, while Windows thinks there's nothing! This is really bothering me. I'd like to recover those files, or at the very least deallocate all that space. I've tried running Recuva on it (great program), but it doesn't turn up anything from that folder.

 

Does anyone know what I could do?

[redhawk]

To start with boot into safe mode and login as Administrator without this you're missing the "security" tab in Windows Explorer.

Access the folder you're having security permissions with and then "take ownership".

 

Richard S.

[Vajradhara]

I got all my stuff back! Thanks a lot, this program is excellent!