A mystery for nerds!

[PeteEU]

Okay this is from my daily work.

Customer.. 80 year old lady, with poor sight. Her computer knowledge is highly limited. Think of your own grandmother...

Computer: Acer AMD X2 laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium in Danish. Perfect working condition, with anti-virus running. Virus free as far as I could tell after running the usual package.

Most used programs: Internet Explorer, Picasa, Skype, Google Earth.

Issue: Her picture collection (family photos) are gone, but the folder structure they were in, is fully intact. We are talking about 30+ folders with sub-folders and hundreds if not thousands of pictures.

The "crime" happened on December 3rd, 2011 at 12:57 Central European Time. How do I know this? Because every folder's last date of change is that date and time.

So can anyone come with some ideas on how this is possible for a novice user with no 3rd party programs and not knowing that you are doing anything?

 

[Ringel05]

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

I'm with Ringel on this one, that is the only way if no one hacked in.

Did you check the recycle bin? Was it empty?

 

[Ringel05]

The other thought is she somehow saved or moved them into a hidden file. Do a graphics file search, include all hidden files

 

[Outback]

Okay this is from my daily work.

Customer.. 80 year old lady, with poor sight. Her computer knowledge is highly limited. Think of your own grandmother...

Computer: Acer AMD X2 laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium in Danish. Perfect working condition, with anti-virus running. Virus free as far as I could tell after running the usual package.

Most used programs: Internet Explorer, Picasa, Skype, Google Earth.

Issue: Her picture collection (family photos) are gone, but the folder structure they were in, is fully intact. We are talking about 30+ folders with sub-folders and hundreds if not thousands of pictures.

The "crime" happened on December 3rd, 2011 at 12:57 Central European Time. How do I know this? Because every folder's last date of change is that date and time.

So can anyone come with some ideas on how this is possible for a novice user with no 3rd party programs and not knowing that you are doing anything?

That sounds like a corrupted file system where the index of the folder structure is maintained, but not the data index. Time to test the hard drive.

 

[uscitizen]

OHH the FAT is in the fire now!

 

[iamwhatiseem]

I'm with outback...sounds like a corrupted file system.
Since she doesn't do anything major...why not restore? It is worth a try.

 

[PeteEU]

I'm with outback...sounds like a corrupted file system.
Since she doesn't do anything major...why not restore? It is worth a try.

Tried a restore no juice.

Hmm had not thought of a corrupted file system.. but then again you should see other problem areas .. would be some fluke if it was just the picture area.

 

[PeteEU]

The other thought is she somehow saved or moved them into a hidden file. Do a graphics file search, include all hidden files

First thing I did. And no she did not delete them either.. we are talking about hundreds of pictures in folders.. and the folders are untouched.. if you delete something then why not delete the whole folder?

 

[PeteEU]

I'm with Ringel on this one, that is the only way if no one hacked in.

Did you check the recycle bin? Was it empty?

Second thing I checked.

 

[PeteEU]

Actually thinking it might be a virus.. a realllly old one at that. There was certain viruses in the mid 2000s that targeted jpg, pdf and certain other files and erased them. But they did it across the computer not only in one folder.

Think I will give her a call tomorrow and tell her to come back with the machine for a more in-depth virus check.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

I'm with outback...sounds like a corrupted file system.
Since she doesn't do anything major...why not restore? It is worth a try.

Tried a restore no juice.

Hmm had not thought of a corrupted file system.. but then again you should see other problem areas .. would be some fluke if it was just the picture area.

Maybe not if she used it alot.
She, or someone, might have been trying to load pictures to/from a digital camera and pulled the cord while it was still copying.
I have seen some pretty flaky stuff happen also with those crappy chinese made thumb drives.

 

[Dude111]

Have you tried to use a FILE RECOVERY program and see if they were deleted? (If so they may be recoverable)

Good luck