![](data:image/svg+xml, %3Csvg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' height='64' class='font-weight-bold' style='font: 600 30.11764705882353px "SegoeUI", Arial' width='64'%3E%3Ccircle fill='hsl(128, 8%, 22%)' cx='32' cy='32' r='32' /%3E%3Ctext x='50%25' y='55%25' dominant-baseline='middle' text-anchor='middle' fill='%23FFF' %3EA%3C/text%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Last night my laptop running Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit on a Dell Inspirion Laptop performed an automatic update. After rebooting, all my personal files including two 15 page papers I was working on for my degree were deleted.
All my pictures, word docs, and personal files are gone. Only the shell of My Documents folder, including the sub folders I created, is left.
I ran the System Restore going back to a two day old restore point, but non of my personal files were recovered.
I searced the internet w/ " Windows automatic updates deleted/erased all my files" and came up w/ several threads reporting this automatic update issue, but no solutions.
Similar questions have been asked in other parts of this forum w/out satisfactory answers:
I even displayed all hidden folders and searched the entire hard drive w/ *.doc and did not get a single file back!
I need help!
My papers are due in a week and all my course work is gone.
I freaked when this happened to me. I installed a bunch of updates at once, I had my main account with a password and had recently enabled a guest account. After several reboots and then a hard reboot (power off completely, then turn on the computer, if that doesn't restore it at that point, then use system restore for ALL files and settings. That worked for me on my HP. it taught me 3 lessons. Before updating, create a restore point, don't update a huge quantity of updates at the same time and third, back up your files on a regular basis and if it's extremely important work, make two backups or also back up to DVD's.