Bad Bad very Bad

[Smuag]

Well i downloaded ccleaner today and I read the beginners guide. Went to run the program, upon completion of cleaner and issues tab, when i closed the program and returned to my desktop i first noticed all my icons had gone away. I was thinking to myself oh well didnt have many on the desktop so i will just need to recreate them.

 

Then with further investigation i have now found that it also deleted my whole my documents folder, which included all of my sons 0-6 month old baby pictures, and 5 gigs of music, plus everything else i had saved in there. Which inlcuded all my outlook emails, and my configs for most of the games i run. All my bookmarks for firefox, things like all the "send to" on the right click are gone also.

 

So wtf happened? I left all default check marks when i ran it, didnt click anything that wasnt there by default. Had no other programs open at the time, and i have no programs that run in the tray other than a ATi's tray icon.

 

Im so pissed right now, i dont care about music and the other crap i lost, but losing my sons pictures from birth is not acceptable.

 

What can i do?

[TheFiresInTheSky]

sorry to hear.

theres a chance you may be able to recover them which im assuming is the first priority.

first, check C:/documents and settings/"your username"/my documents

and see if its there.

if not, you can try running the attachment below.

i cant guarantee it will work but its worth a shot.

REST2514.zip

REST2514.zip

[rridgely]

Sorry but I don't think ccleaner could have done this. CCleaner can only removes the things that are in its .ini files and My Documents isn't one of them. You didn't by any chance set My Documents as a custom folder did you?

 

As far as getting your files back there are a couple of things to try.

 

Restoration:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html

 

PC Inspector file recovery:

http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/PC_Inspec...cinspector.html

 

Avira Unerase:

http://www.free-av.com/antivirclassic/avira_unerase.html

 

Let us know if you can get them back.

Sorry that this happened to you.

[Smuag]

If i set my documents as a custom folder it wasnt intentional, because i dont know how to do that. For future info how would i go about making sure i dont set it as custom?

 

I will try these programs and see if i can recover as much as possible

[rridgely]

To do that you would have had to check "custom files and folders" under the advanced menu and then went to options>custom and added my documents to the list.

 

By any chance are you using microsofts virtual desktop? I know that ccleaner cleans that because it stores all of its files in temp folders. Thats about the only way I can think of that it would have removed your desktop icons. But that still doesn't explain all your files being deleted. This is all very bizzare.

 

I hope you get your stuff back, I know how much you must be worried about getting those pics back.

[JDPower]

Avira Unerase:

http://www.free-av.com/antivirclassic/avira_unerase.html

That Avira Unerase program is pretty good, just tried it and much prefer it to Restoration. Why does it complain about it being dangerous to restore files to the same volume though???

[Eldmannen]

Keep in mind that you should always do backup of important data, because you never know when something unexpected happens.

[Andavari]

Why does it complain about it being dangerous to restore files to the same volume though???

 

I suppose the main reason is like any other when attempting to restore deleted files you don't want to add too many new files to the original disk as much as possible because of the risk of losing the file you're attempting to restore - but it isn't entirely logical if someone only has a C: drive and is attempting to recover a large amount of files as there wouldn't be anywhere else to store the recovered files.

 

Also a few other people have had the rare problem of CCleaner wiping out the My Documents folder and Desktop icons, a quick forum search would reveal those posts. If it's CCleaner related or not I don't know.

[capseasick]

I did the same thing useing win2k. but 2 programs no longer run and my desk icons will not rearange.

also properties will not work at all. any help?

[TheFiresInTheSky]

welcome to the CC forums!

I did the same thing useing win2k.

are you saying it deleted your documents too?

to rearrange icons, right click on desktop>arange icons by>(uncheck)auto arrange.

what what programs dont work?

[arizonabay]

I need to say... I was searching google for this issue, found this and immediately registered to post. I have used ccleaner for over a year and absolutely love it. Last night I started ccleaner and left (my daughter was coming to use the computer, she knows to finish it) I have used CCleaner at least 100 times. I sign on today and here is what is gone

 

90% desktop items

all computer/system settings

all restore points

all documents

all pictures

95% of installed programs

huge data files for my work

all work invoices and billing

 

I even lost CCleaner! and I have spent all day today trying to get this stuff back, and havent gotten ANY of it. System restore - 4 times, unable. There are no restore files. Norton go back. shows 30,000+ files, I select them and hit restore, leave it for awhile, come back, it says all but maybe 20 were restored, restart computer, exactly the same. and now, when I bring up Nortons go back, the files arent there any more, because it says they were restored, so I guess they got lost in cyberspace? I am truly baffled by this. As long as I have used this and losing SO MUCH and cant find any help. I will keep checking in case any one comes up with anything. Also, I have scanned for trojans, viruses, spyware, etc ALMOST every day for the last 3 weeks, and have scanned with everything I use today and all say clean. I have the full Norton Systemworks, adaware, used Trendmicro online, spybot. nothing. all clear.

[JDPower]

Aren't you missing one of the other possible causes:

Last night I started ccleaner and left (my daughter was coming to use the computer... ...I sign on today and here is what is gone

[TheOdds]

I even lost CCleaner!

Then it couldn't possibly be CCleaner what deleted those files. CCleaner can't delete itself while it's runing.

[arizonabay]

say or believe what you want. I am a super fan of CCleaner. The files were SHOWN as being deleted by CCleaner on Norton GoBack (each file shows what deleted it, each file said CCleaner). My daughter touched nothing, it was in the process, and done by the time she sat. She did nothing but close it and log me off.

[TheOdds]

say or believe what you want.

Same goes to you pal.

 

I am a super fan of CCleaner. The files were SHOWN as being deleted by CCleaner on Norton GoBack (each file shows what deleted it, each file said CCleaner).

I have never heard of Norton GoBack before, but if it can show the files what CCleaner deleted, could you post a screenshot what show some of those files or even better if Norton GoBack keeps logs post a full log what show all the files. It could help to explain what vent wrong.

[hazelnut]

I need to say... I was searching google for this issue, found this and immediately registered to post. I have used ccleaner for over a year and absolutely love it. Last night I started ccleaner and left (my daughter was coming to use the computer, she knows to finish it) I have used CCleaner at least 100 times. I sign on today and here is what is gone

 

90% desktop items

all computer/system settings

all restore points

all documents

all pictures

95% of installed programs

huge data files for my work

all work invoices and billing

 

I even lost CCleaner! and I have spent all day today trying to get this stuff back, and havent gotten ANY of it. System restore - 4 times, unable. There are no restore files. Norton go back. shows 30,000+ files, I select them and hit restore, leave it for awhile, come back, it says all but maybe 20 were restored, restart computer, exactly the same. and now, when I bring up Nortons go back, the files arent there any more, because it says they were restored, so I guess they got lost in cyberspace? I am truly baffled by this. As long as I have used this and losing SO MUCH and cant find any help. I will keep checking in case any one comes up with anything. Also, I have scanned for trojans, viruses, spyware, etc ALMOST every day for the last 3 weeks, and have scanned with everything I use today and all say clean. I have the full Norton Systemworks, adaware, used Trendmicro online, spybot. nothing. all clear.

 

Hello arizonabay,

 

Sorry to read about your problem with your lost (precious) files and inability to restore.

 

I did a little look around google as well and found quite a few folk have had problems with norton go back. In quite a few mentions, some users said about the fact that it sometimes erases system restore points, so if it is doing the restore it may destroy them itself. Also it is fiendishly difficult to uninstall (as are most norton products). There is also the possibility that norton go back decided your c drive was in danger and would have taken certain steps on the push of one button. Could this have happened?

I am in no way saying you are not telling the truth as you see it , but please consider that other possibilities may have caused this. By the way on one site a frantic user posted a Ctrl+Alt+G fix that is supposed to disable go back, he was thanked a lot for this!!

May I ask why you felt the need to scan for trojans etc every day for the last 3 weeks? Was your system sluggish?

I wish you the best of luck in solving your problem.

[arizonabay]

I have never used Norton Goback before this incident, and as a matter of fact, almost forgot about it being a part of the security system.. It has been installed on my computer for 3+ years, so what are the odds the program chose to do this now, at the exact same time I ran CCleaner, having never used Goback or even opening it until a day after this happened? I had scanned everyday because I had put everything on autoscan. Just forget it. Half here are insistent it was NOT CCleaner that deleted them when I saw the list myself with CCLeaner name listed next to each file, and the other half think I'm just trying to say something bad about the program in general. Neither of which is true. As far as "users said about the fact that it sometimes erases system restore points...." Norton GoBack RECOVERS files as they are deleted and holds them in case you need to 'GoBack'.... why would it delete the restore points, only to hold them and show them to me in the list of 33,000 files it had on hand to be restored? "There is also the possibility that norton go back decided your c drive was in danger" GoBack does not does not scan randomly for virus intrusion or disks being in 'danger'. If people were saying it was deleting files, maybe they didnt understand how it works or what it is. Or maybe they are the usual gang of Amazon spammers bashing products to boost another products sales. Who knows. Why would it delete a few specific system restore points, when the deleted files would be right there on the GoBack utility waiting for you to click and restore them? As far as posting the screenshots as the above poster asked..... maybe you missed this part in the ORIGINAL post..... "Norton go back. shows 30,000+ files, I select them and hit restore, leave it for awhile, come back, it says all but maybe 20 were restored, restart computer, exactly the same. and now, when I bring up Nortons go back, the files arent there any more...." Funny how the original guy shut up and he got left alone. The more I talk, the more I get unkind replies. If anything, when I saw someone else had the exact same problem within a few days of mine, I thought maybe this was a brand new threat just starting to be recognized. I was never coming here to trash a product or accuse anyone of anything. I will still use CCleaner. I was hoping I could share ideas with the original guy in case either of us found something to recover these files, or to let the Moderators know and see if they were familiar with this in case they had a solution. I realize that with probably millions of users, 2 incidents are going to be looked at suspiciously and most will assume it was something we actually did seperate from CCleaner. Fine. Sorry I looked for help.

[TheOdds]

Just trying to figure out what happened.

 

Ok let's try this. I asume you haven't installed CCleaner after the incident. If so CCleaner setting probably still are in windows registry untouched, could post those settings here.

 

If you don't know how to do it...

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
   
2. Locate the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\CCleaner\Options
   
3. Click the Options key, and then click Export Registry File on the Registry menu.
   
4. Enter a name and location for the saved registry file, and then click Save. (After that you can delete the CCleaner key if you want.)
   
5. Attach the the registry file you saved to your reply.
   

[arizonabay]

Just trying to figure out what happened.

 

Ok let's try this. I asume you haven't installed CCleaner after the incident. If so CCleaner setting probably still are in windows registry untouched, could post those settings here.

 

If you don't know how to do it...

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.

2. Locate the following registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\CCleaner\Options

3. Click the Options key, and then click Export Registry File on the Registry menu.

4. Enter a name and location for the saved registry file, and then click Save. (After that you can delete the CCleaner key if you want.)

5. Attach the the registry file you saved to your reply.

 

Key Name: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings\CCleaner\Options

Class Name: <NO CLASS>

Last Write Time: 9/17/2006 - 6:46 PM

Value 0

Name: Language

Type: REG_SZ

Data: 1033

 

Value 1

Name: BackupDir

Type: REG_SZ

Data: C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents

 

Value 2

Name: UpdateCheck

Type: REG_SZ

Data: 0

 

Value 3

Name: SecureDeleteType

Type: REG_SZ

Data: 0

 

Value 4

Name: SecureDeleteMethod

Type: REG_SZ

Data: 0

 

Value 5

Name: HideWarnings

Type: REG_SZ

Data: 0

 

Value 6

Name: DelayTemp

Type: REG_SZ

Data: 0

 

Value 7

Name: AutoClose

Type: REG_SZ

Data: 0

 

Value 8

Name: BackupPrompt

Type: REG_SZ

Data: 0

 

Value 9

Name: IEDetailed

Type: REG_SZ

Data: 1

 

Value 10

Name: CookiesToSave

Type: REG_SZ

Data:

 

Value 11

Name: CustomFolders

Type: REG_SZ

Data:

 

Value 12

Name: CustomFiles

Type: REG_SZ

Data:

 

Value 13

Name: WINDOW_MAX

Type: REG_SZ

Data: 1

 

Value 14

Name: (App)Temporary Internet Files

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 15

Name: (App)Cookies

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 16

Name: (App)History

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 17

Name: (App)Recently Typed URLs

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 18

Name: (App)Delete Index.dat files

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 19

Name: (App)Last Download Location

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 20

Name: (App)Autocomplete Form History

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 21

Name: (App)Recent Documents

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 22

Name: (App)Run (in Start Menu)

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 23

Name: (App)Search Assistant Autocomplete

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 24

Name: (App)Other Explorer MRUs

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 25

Name: (App)Empty Recycle Bin

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 26

Name: (App)Temporary Files

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 27

Name: (App)Clipboard

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 28

Name: (App)Memory Dumps

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 29

Name: (App)Chkdsk File Fragments

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 30

Name: (App)Windows Log Files

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 31

Name: (App)Old Prefetch data

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 32

Name: (App)Menu Order Cache

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 33

Name: (App)Tray Notifications Cache

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 34

Name: (App)Window Size/Location Cache

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 35

Name: (App)User Assist History

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 36

Name: (App)IIS Log Files

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 37

Name: (App)Hotfix Uninstallers

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 38

Name: (App)Custom Folders

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 39

Name: (App)Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 40

Name: (App)Google Toolbar

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 41

Name: (App)Windows Media Player

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 42

Name: (App)Quicktime Player

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 43

Name: (App)Office 2003

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 44

Name: (App)Macromedia Flash Player

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 45

Name: (App)MS Management Console

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 46

Name: (App)MS Wordpad

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 47

Name: (App)MS Paint

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 48

Name: (App)Ad-Aware SE Personal

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 49

Name: (App)MSN Messenger

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 50

Name: (App)Sun Java

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 51

Name: (App)RegEdit

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 52

Name: (App)Google Earth

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 53

Name: (App)Missing Shared DLLs

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 54

Name: (App)Invalid File Extensions

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 55

Name: (App)ActiveX and Class Issues

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 56

Name: (App)Applications

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 57

Name: (App)Fonts

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 58

Name: (App)Application Paths

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 59

Name: (App)Help Files

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 60

Name: (App)Installer

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 61

Name: (App)Obsolete Software

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 62

Name: (App)Run At Startup

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 63

Name: (App)Start Menu Ordering

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 64

Name: (App)MUI Cache

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 65

Name: (App)Start Menu Shortcuts

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 66

Name: (App)Desktop Shortcuts

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 67

Name: (App)Paint Shop Pro 9.0

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 68

Name: (App)Paint Shop Pro X

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

 

Value 69

Name: (App)WinRAR

Type: REG_SZ

Data: True

[TheOdds]

Hmm everything seems to be OK... unless... Do you remember what version you had.

[arizonabay]

v1.28.277

- Updated Hotfix Uninstaller cleaning.

- Added secure certificate to the installer.

- Improved secure deletion performance.

- Fixed a few issues with 64bit OSs.

- Fixed checkbox bug on Issue Scanner.

- Added Galician Translation.

- Minor updates to Arabic and Hebrew.

- Minor interface and style update.

- Minor performance tweaks.

 

v1.27.260

- Added secure file deletion.

- Added Windows HotFix Uninstaller cleaning.

- Added optional CCleaner/Yahoo! toolbar.

- Updated application icon.

- Fixed large file size issue.

- Fixed Firefox cookie error.

- Restyled Startup program list.

- Added cleaning for:

Grisoft AVG 7.0, TUGZip, AntiVir Personal Edition,

Google Toolbar 4.0

- Updated cleaning for:

MSN Messenger, DVD Shrink, Spybot Search and Destroy,

Adobe Photoshop CS2.

- Updated translations:

Hebrew, Romanian, French, German.

- Fixed small font issue with symbolic languages.

- Minor display fixes.

[TheOdds]

Thanks I had an theory what I tested with VMware (just in case), but it didn't do anything. Also it if that would have been the case there would be a lot more people with destroyed systems.

 

Well I am out of ideas.

[TheOdds]

http://forum.ccleaner.com/index.php?showtopic=7312

http://forum.ccleaner.com/index.php?act=an...p;f=4&id=18

 

Make sure your TMP and TEMP environment variables are ok.

[arizonabay]

http://forum.ccleaner.com/index.php?showtopic=7312

http://forum.ccleaner.com/index.php?act=an...p;f=4&id=18

 

Make sure your TMP and TEMP environment variables are ok.

 

Thank you so much Odds for showing me someone else was having the same problem. BIG hugs!