BleepingComputer.com: After a computer recovery, backed up files cannot be found...

Hello to all,

OK....recently I was infected with something that I simply was not able to recover from. I ran a system recovery (provded on my HP) that backed up my files and reset XP. However, I cannot find where it stored my files. I know the files are still there somewhere because I have 108GB used space on my 176GB capacity hard disk. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Thank you.

chepler84

Try downloading and running WinDirStat. It will let you see where the 108GB is located, since it all likely within a singe parent folder.

I think I might be in trouble. After running the WinDirStat it suggests that I've actually got just 19.4 GB of used space. Unless I'm reading this wrong, I'm afraid my "backup" did nothing more than clear the hard drive altogether...

I've made a new discovery that I stumbled upon while virus scanning my computer. From what I can gather my backup created a folder titled C:\USERDATA. I noticed this when I saw some of my old file names in the scan. However, when I try to open this file is says that C:\USERDATA is not accessible and access is denied. Also the folder properties states that it contains 0 files and 0 bytes. I'm quite confused so any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

You probably just need to take ownership of the C:\USERDATA folder.