Windows 10 Help needed urgently

[Berriano]

Help needed desperatley

I recently upgraded my gf's laptop from win7 to win10.the process taken a while but was pretty pain free until.....no settings transfered,different wallpaper,no bookmarks etc and worst of all,I COULDNT FIND HER PICTURES.
Researched the web and found they were located in the network folder.So,decided to cut from the netwoork folder and paste to the new desktop.then restarted her laptop.
ALL OF A SUDDEN everything was back as it should have been,same wallpaper,chrome bookmarks,settings,remote desktop all working good,except now........NO PICTURES!
Searched the whole system and her pictures are nowhere,PLEASE tell me theres a way to find them.
kind regards

 

[kemical]

You could try the Windows.old folder. This help page has a troubleshooter which might work although really it's for 8.1 but give it a go:
Retrieving files from the Windows.old folder - Windows Help

 

[Berriano]

I tried that but its gone,all the other files that were there are there but the photo folder has gone.thanks for your reply tho

 

[kemical]

Damn. I'm just about to head out the door too.. Hopefully another forum member will have the answer but in any case good luck!

 

[Berriano]

i think its something to do with copying the pictures from windows old. to the temporary profile desktop,then restarting the laptop,and the original user has finished installing and deleted the temporary profile,along with the photos.is there any way to access the temporary profile data?

 

[kemical]

Any luck?

 

[Saltgrass]

I would also be surprised if pictures in the pictures folder had not been maintained. Could there be anything special about the way the pictures were stored or the file type of the pictures? I am not clear on what happened regarding some "temporary profile" and any changes made during the actual upgrade process Hopefully the normal upgrade process was not being interrupted.

It can be confusing when files are in a Library folder since they may not actually be in that folder but in another folder somewhere on your system or possibly even a remote source.

Does she have any other archive locations? Was OneDrive enabled during the upgrade and could anything be there? Has a backup image ever been made of the windows 7 install?

The roll back data will be removed after about 31 days, so do what you can before that time.

 

[Marty Mcfly]

Just a thought, but have you checked C:\Users\<username>\My Pictures. Maybe another profile was created during the transition to win 10.

 

[Berriano]

No luck with any of this,its seems to me it could have been deleted when the temporary profile disappeared.does anyone know how to access the temporary profile once its disappeared?

 

[Saltgrass]

Well, I will ask once more. What do you mean by temporary profile?

You may want to set the view options to your system to view hidden system files.

If you just upgraded to Windows 10, you may have used the newest version which not many others have used to do the original Windows 10 upgrade.

 

[Berriano]

a temporary profile is what windows 10 gives you whilst it configures ur user profile,the first time it boots up after installation,unbeknown to me at the time.i just assumed the migration of files and apps didnt go to plan when upgrading,and tried to cut the files stored in windows.old to the new desktop(temporary profile desktop).only when i rebooted the second time the migration had completed and all settings,apps etc were as they were on windows 7,only all the photos had disappeared and are not anywhere on the system.its a very muddled situation but i hope that its a bit clearer now.
also,the upgrade was done through windows 7 update.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

It sounds like to me like you attempted to "cut" the pictures folder while the W10 upgrade process was in process of upgrading! Always a bad idea. Copy & pasting=ok; "cut & paste"=BAD.

You seemed to ignore Saltgrasses' question on whether your gf or you backed up her Library (basically her Personal data with documents, photos, music, movies, emails, etc.) to external media. This could be a flash drive, external hdd, Cloud drive as mentioned. I know it's embarassing if neither one of you failed to do this basic step. Not everyone goes to school on computers, and even if either of you took a computer programming class or basic computers, they don't teach you about this sort of thing. Bottom line going forward for you: "never ever ever hit OK to a Windows upgrade button without having backup to external media--preferably in at least 2 different types of media mentioned!!". This may be a very expensive lesson for the both of you.

Don't mean to chastise you; just trying to educate you. We see hundreds of people do the same thing, and the is the #1 problem people face. They don't ask for help for a computer professional, try to DIY it, and save $$--I get that--but, it's not worth it if you lose all your stuff.

What I suggest now, is that you stop what you're doing, and consider the fact that you may have already screwed the pooch here so to speak. Continuing to try and get that folder back, is more likely to fail than not. You should turn off that computer, and read our instructions below, and talk to your gf again and ask her if she has that pictures folder backed up somewhere else. Regardless of her answer, it's gone on that computer now. You should take that computer in to your local Computer Pro and pay them to do a Data Recovery to get that folder back, if possible. This will run about $35-$90 the US to do. And if the Tech is proficient, he will do it in 2-3 days. Also, if he can't get it back because you scrambled it too badly, you're not out of luck yet. You can send it out (or your Tech can) for professional Data Recovery; however that's very expensive starting at $250 and takes weeks to do. You'll next have to determine whether those are just random pet pictures and nature landscapes or they contain IRREPLACEABLE family archive photos for the last 80 years. You and gf have to determine what those are worth.

I happen to be one of the Techs that specialize in Data Recovery, and I've recovered most of the photos from hard drives messed up worse than yours. Typically, professional Data Recovery provides from 70-98% recovery of your photos if done right. If you decide to follow my advice, post back and I'll provide you with the names of the only 2 reliable Data Recovery services in the US that I have personally used.

You and gf have some serious considering to do.
Best of luck and sorry about your mess; I see this on a daily basis now.

<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

[Saltgrass]

The reason I was asking about the profile is because Windows 10 likes to use your Microsoft ID to set up the user account. So it uses the first 5 letters of your e-mail address to create the user folder on the new system, possibly. Checking to see if she has such a folder may lead to some additional files.

When you do an upgrade, the user normally does not need to touch the system until after the upgrade is complete and it starts asking questions at the end. Once all the questions are answered, the system completes the upgrade and all settings and files are where they will stay. It sounds like you interrupted the process and "cut" the picture files from the archive location so when the upgrade was completing that process, there were no files to copy back, if that is even how the upgrade works.

If that is what happened, and the files are not in the Windows.old or Recyle Bin, then I suppose her files are gone unless there are backups somewhere. If it was a Dell system, possibly a Dell Backup utility had been used at some point in time.

 

[Berriano]

Managed to use a data recovery software and get most of her photos back,thank you to all who constructively tried to help.
FYI,my gf started the windows 10 update without telling me she was doing it,thus no chance of me doing a backup.although,i don't back up all my data before installing every windows update.i also ignored the question about whether my gf backed up her photos as i thought it was pretty obvious she hadn't,otherwise surely i would install her photos from the backup and not waste everybody's time asking on a forum!Even i know how to do that without being a "tech expert"!
once again,thanks to all who tried to help constructively,very appreciated.