Automatic Update deleted all my files!

Anonymous
2010-04-29T14:22:13+00:00

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:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/itprovistaapps/thread/dd1beef0-4cae-4220-87fd-6556fd1c4d7d

<removed link>

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.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-10-06T20:51:29+00:00

    I almost lost it went in to do a presentation and everything was gone. If Gates would have been there I would have strangled him.

    Tried your suggestion and it worked still mad as hell never authorized the win 10 upgrade it did it on its own.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-08-24T18:30:24+00:00

    Thank you, thank you, thank you. It worked. You are wonderful for sharing this fix. I created the guest user account, restarted, logged into guest user, logged out, logged into my main account, and everything was back. 😁😁😁😁

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-08-09T13:45:21+00:00

    Upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 lost my document files, pictures, music.  Fortunately, I use an online backup service, but it takes almost four days.  The files are surely sill on the hard drive somewhere, but I tried looking in Windows.Old, network, etc.  Microsoft needs to come up with a diagnostic tool very soon -- they had one for Win 8.1, but Win 10 advised me to not use it.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-08-09T02:36:51+00:00

    Karla,

    I hope from this point forward you'll take to heart the advice you repeatedly hear: "Back up your data."

    Hope things get better in the near future, and maybe this is time for a Microsoft representative to step in and confirm they repeatedly screw thing up.  It's just a thought....

    Doug

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  5. Anonymous
    2015-08-09T02:19:18+00:00

    The same thing happened to me about a week ago and I am yet to find a solution. I too have all my assignments and lecture notes for my degree and am desperate to restore my files.

    I have an Apple Mac Air so I can't remove the battery and enabling the guest user account didn't work either. I contacted a friend in IT who couldn't restore the files and went to an Apple Store who couldn't figure it out either as it's a Microsoft Update.

    Does anyone else have any other ideas?

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