Windows 7 Lost personnal data !!

[Mazus]

Hello !
I don't know how this happened, I was cleaning some stuff on my computer, in my sdata partition, mwhen I noticed some blank Icons in the task bar, it was the windows explorer icon, and media player that turned blank.
Afterward, I noticed that my libraries didn't expand anymore, I restored them... But I had lost all the folders I included in different libraries.
Then, all my programs reacted like if I was using them for the first time : firefox asked me to import bookmarks, itunes to import music etc...
Consequently I've lost all my bookmarks, my plugins, recorded passwords etc. Same for msn messenger.

An idea of how this happened ?

How can I restore those datas ??

 

[davehc]

They may be there, but moved to a postion you have not found yet. But be cautious. If the files are prwcious, there are some utilities that can recover deleted files - if you have not been too active and garbled some of them with overwrites!
However, Fista try and create another user account and see if it sorts the problem.
(Have you looked in you recycle bin to see if they can be restored?)

 

[Psychlone]

I would cease all activities immediately. ANYTHING that you do with that HDD plugged in is erasing over previous files.
This includes any antivirus updates, Windows updates, any downloads at all, saving absolutely anything, and worst of all - defragmenting.

You need to get ahold of a WindowsPE disk or recovery utility such as Advanced Data Recovery Pro, Data Rescue, UBCD, SpinRite or other and utilize that program to recover whatever is lost.

I wouldn't do a thing to the HDD in question - not even boot to it at all. I would boot to a recovery CD and try to recover whatever is missing from there, before anything else is overwritten.

Good luck!

Psychlone

 

[Mazus]

Well, thanks for your answers, but I didn't got myself into such a stress !!

I just re-done my bookmarks, remembered my passwords and that's it. Finally it wasn't such a big deal but at first I was a bit upset.
Still I don't really what happened since everything else works fine and thanks to the library concepts, I had just to include folders in corresponding library. I didn't lost precious data except my bookmarks, password and plugins in firefox.

Well I'm gonna be more cautious in the future.

Thank you!