[Goatboy1981]

Behold and scoff at my ineptitude as i have accidentally managed to delete my Documents folder and therefore all files contained therein. Whilst sorting the files in the Documents folder i hit backspace then delete and enter wihtout looking. I went straight to the recycle bin, found the folder and hit restore but when i went to the Documents folder from the task pane on the start menu there was nothing there. The original icon is gone leaving only a blank page icon and the properties window tells me there is no file type and 0kb of data. Clicking on it obviosuly does nothing, nor does trying to enter it from the folder list. When i try to search for it or any of the files that were in it, the search returns shortcuts to the files but Windows can not find or open the files' location. What the hell have i done and is there any way to get my Documents folder back?

[DaveA]

I think you are SOL, the files are gone.

[1002richards]

Would 'Restoration' a free recovery prog be of any use?

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

Richard.

[Elvandil]

If it is the real "Documents" folder, it is a system folder and should not be deletable. Was it the usual "My Documents" folder?

Try running chkdsk /r on the drive.

If the files are really important to you, the best thing to do is to shut the machine down immediately before they get overwritten. Then move the drive to another machine tro try recovery apps, or use a parallel operating system, like the bootable UBCD4Win if you have another XP machine with which to create it.

Free recovery applications:

1) Recover Files
2) Recuva
3) Restoration
4) Free Undelete (NTFS only)
5) Softperfect File Recovery
6) ADRC Data Recovery Tools
7) Undelete Plus
8) Data Recovery
9) PCI File Recovery
10) DriveRescue
11) Ultimate Data Recovery
12) Disk Investigator

Commercial:

Paragon Mount Everything (Mounts any file system, CD/DVD burning, File Manager, Partitioner)
GetDataBack (For FAT or NTFS)
Ontrack EasyRecovery Pro
File Scavenger
Recover My Files
RecoverPlus Pro
Zero Assumption Recovery
Active@ File Recovery
Final Recovery
Recover4All Professional
Easeus Data Recovery Wizard
NTFS Recovery