Hi all,

I recently switched my Dell Studio laptop on to find that all documents were missing from the machine. The computer appears to be blank, as if it were new.

I googled the issue and it suggested that I try a system restore, which I did. This did not work. Now all I can restore to is yesterday (20.8.14)?

Old programs seem to still be installed (Blender, AVG etc...) but none of my files or folders exist. I can still access "My Documents" ect, but they are empty and contain no files or folders that I have created.

The laptop has always run with an watermark in the corner of the screen saying "This copy of windows is not genuine" - It is genuine, but I've never gotten round to registering it, the previous owner still has the number required for this.

Any ideas on what this might be. My first assumption is some kind of virus - but I'm not too tech savvy with this sort of thing?

Thanks.

That sounds like it's booting into a whole new user (thereby those folders being empty, they're brand new!). Did you try checking that? Also may want to look where Windows stores those files (yes, this is ugly), this would help confirm that your files are indeed still there.

View all hidden files and folders? There are some malware that will set all your folders to hidden, kinda annoying.

Why dont you just boot with an ubuntu USB and see if the files are there or not?

I've had this happen multiple times, and for me, every time it was a corrupt user profile. You can google it, but the fix was something like creating a new user, then copying over everything from the old profile to the new profile, and then just use the new profile.

I've had to do it at least three times for my wife. The symptom was always the same: She would log in and everything on the desktop was missing, along with everything in the My Documents folder.

As whatever user you are, go to your C drive, open up the Users folder, and look for the user folder that you are looking for. It does sound like a corrupt user profile.

Firstly, thanks for all the advice - it's much appreciated.

Dragonsoulj - your suggestion worked. All of my original files are present in the Users folder that you described.

Could a virus cause the corruption or is it just a systemic glitch?

It is just a glitch. An IT friend of mine who oversees hundreds of accounts has to fix this every week for someone.

This usually happens to me if I login too soon after the computer boots up. For some reason it won't log me in to my actual account and switches me to some kind of dummy account until I logout and then back in.

Details of what happens to me here: http://www.sysprobs.com/fix-temporary-profile-windows-7

If you can, try to start backing up your files.

Warning: Backing up your files doesn't give you any more peace of mind. Infact, it makes you more paranoid, but it's probably a good idea anyway.