This one baffled me. I've previously used GetDataBack and Recuva to pull files out of reformats, accidental deletions, overwrites and the like. It's usually pretty clear cut and easy, especially for deletions. Customer sends a laptop in, claims he was trying to copy his pictures and documents folders to a USB stick. He "must have hit the wrong thing", and the stick contains nothing, but the folders are gone from his user folder. I search the drive to see if they've been dragged somewhere else. No documents or pictures on the drive anywhere. GetDataBack does not show them as deleted - or at all. Nothing comes up in 'Deleted files' mode. It's like they were never there. I do a deep scan for systemic damage, as if he'd reformatted the machine - even though, from the installed programs and file dates, I know he can't have done that. Bingo - they show up as 'Hidden' folders. All his documents and photos are there. Upon recovery, though, they are all corrupted. All of them. Every alternate version, every single file (several hundred) are all totally broken, overwritten with other data. As though they were deleted months ago and then overwritten with new data. But this only happened a few days ago, and he hasn't used the machine since. How can this possibly have happened if he just 'hit the wrong button'? I wondered if it was some kind of virus damage. They weren't deleted or moved, the OS wasn't reinstalled. The file copy process would never scrub the old files until they were successfully on the destination USB stick, and they never made it (never copied anything at all). They were never deleted by a file operation; they're not 'Deleted' in GetDataBack, but 'Hidden'. Windows Explorer doesn't seem them at all, though I have hidden and system folders set to show. And as I say, they're completely scrambled. I'm struggling to even explain to myself how this could have happened, or what he could have done.
He fervently denies any such complication. I know there's some key piece of information he's either forgotten or is withholding, but I don't know what. One thought that just occurred to me is AVG's file shredder functionality. I know he had AVG Free installed. It would explain the symptoms, but it's not exactly discreet - it does clearly ask you in large letters, "THIS WILL PERMANENTLY DELETE THESE FILES, THESE FILES WILL NOT BE RECOVERABLE, ARE YOU SURE" or something to that effect. It's not the kind of detail you forget
But it is the kind of thing you withhold from an IT professional in order not to look silly. Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
I would be inclined to refer him to a specilist data recovery company and save yourself the hassle... It nice to have plenty of customers but some can be a right pain
