"system restore" removed all my pictures. "undo system restore"??

[likecharlie]

so yesterday I clicked on something stupid and got that shitty virus that says "your machine is corrupted... buy our anti-virus tools to fix this"...

The only way I could figure out to get rid of it was to do a "system restore", to 3 days before, and it seemed to work. Today I saw that all the pictures that were in my Pictures folder are GONE.

I've been google searching and saw the option to "undo system restore" for Windows Vista. It says go to System Tools/System Restore, then click Undo System Restore, then click Next.

But I don't see the option to Undo System Restore. The only option is to run the System Restore again. Should I do that? Or is there another way to get my pictures back?? Any help you guys have would be beyond awesome!

 

[Atzesp]

Wow, man, that is weird! I have restored my system lots of times, besides restoring the system of my parents' computer, my bf's notebook, my sister's... And never nothing like that happened to me. Usually, when you restore your system, they only change/alter the installed softwares. Every file you have kept in your HD is supposed to remain there.

If something happened, probably the restoring wasn't properly finished. Or (my guess) maybe, on restoring your system, it created a new user account - and so your files are on a different "partition". Try to look for them using the search, or look for a folder with your name on "C:\Documents and settings"

Or you can also try to use the Shadow Copies tool in order to (try to) recover your files. Here you have a little tutorial about how it works. Another one here.

Hope any of these can be useful to you.

 

[likecharlie]

Thanks man! I'll give that a try. Yeah, I did get some kind of error message at the end of the system restore... something about how it did not fully restore.

 

[Adrock-JD]

I use Vista and had to reformat my Hard Drive a few months ago.

I went to "computer" under the 'start' button then double clicked "Local Disk (C: )

then looked for "windows.old" file and double clicked it

all my stuff was still there under "Users"

I copied and pasted the picture and video and document file folders onto my desktop

 

[GamerBear]

Yeah this happened to my brother's laptop. He was actually looking for album art work through Google and ran across a site that had a virus on it. It wiped out EVERYTHING on his hard drive when he did a system restore it brought all his applications and files back but it deleted all his pictures and stuff in the My Documents and My Pictures folders.

It's probably a real nasty virus but you need to make sure you are well protected. My virus program tells me when I'm going into a bad website and blocks the address from downloading anything to my computer.

 

[likecharlie]

Thanks for the help guys!!! (yeah, that is one nasty virus! ) So I used Shadow Explore, and found all my pictures. Phew! haha. I will now always save copies elsewhere.

Y'all are great! Cheers

 

[profidedan]

System restore doesn't affect files created or added after the restore date / point. Undo the restore and send microsoft an email to let them know what happened.