Deleting Temporary Files

[Lupin]

I recently encountered this problem while deleting files in Window's Temp folder (both the user Temp and the Temp found inside the Windows folder).

I recently deleted all files in the temporary folders not accessed in the last 7 days. After doing this, all the contents of my account went poof. The whole My Documents folder is gone, so are all the files on my Desktop. The files were not in the Recycle Bin. Luckily, I haven't done anything else yet (create/move new files into the drive, etc) after it happened. I also have data recovery software installed (one of the first things I install in Windows) so I was able to recover everything using it.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

[kyanwan]

Er - if you're cleaning out your temp directories, this shouldn't happen.  

They're as follows:

documents and settings\%username%\local settings\temp (and \temporary internet files\)  
%system directory%\temp

The following - is not a temp directory ( It's tempting to delete ... you can clean it out by hand, though, by removing entries for uninstalled apps.):

documents and settings\%username%\local settings\application data\

If you've cleaned out directories other than those - you might have caused yourself some problems.    But really - I don't see how you could get the other things ( like the /my documents/ ) if you just cleaned those out. 

[Lupin]

documents and settings\%username%\local settings\temp (and \temporary internet files\)  
%system directory%\temp

I deleted files from only these locations you mentioned.

[kyanwan]

documents and settings\%username%\local settings\temp (and \temporary internet files\)  
%system directory%\temp

I deleted files from only these locations you mentioned.

Have you checked by browsing to where the files should have been?   [ Just a quick thing - indices/indexes could be screwed up.   Run a chkdsk to see if they're screwed. ] 

[NaRu]

next time you want to clean out your drive like that you should use CCleaner.

[BuriaL]

I read somewhere that its a good idea to make a partition for the temp files. Havent tried it myself.

I guess what you do is just assign the viritual memory to the new "drive", then you wont have the defragmentation problem.

Anyways, read about it before doing something, dont want you to cry over youre dead baby computer

[Lupin]

Have you checked by browsing to where the files should have been?   [ Just a quick thing - indices/indexes could be screwed up.   Run a chkdsk to see if they're screwed. ] 

Did this and no errors where found

I read somewhere that its a good idea to make a partition for the temp files. Havent tried it myself.

I guess what you do is just assign the viritual memory to the new "drive", then you wont have the defragmentation problem.

Anyways, read about it before doing something, dont want you to cry over youre dead baby computer

I've been doing this for years.

[Xiong Chiamiov]

Have you checked by browsing to where the files should have been?   [ Just a quick thing - indices/indexes could be screwed up.   Run a chkdsk to see if they're screwed. ] 

Did this and no errors where found

Did this?

Run a chkdsk to see if they're screwed.

or this?

Have you checked by browsing to where the files should have been?

[Lupin]

Have you checked by browsing to where the files should have been?   [ Just a quick thing - indices/indexes could be screwed up.   Run a chkdsk to see if they're screwed. ] 

Did this and no errors where found

Did this?

Run a chkdsk to see if they're screwed.

or this?

Have you checked by browsing to where the files should have been?

I did all the things that were suggested here before I even made this thread. I also scanned the drive only after I recovered the files.

[Xiong Chiamiov]

So, are the files in C:\Documents and Settings\... where they should be, or not?

[DaggerLite]

[...] I also have data recovery software installed (one of the first things I install in Windows) so I was able to recover everything using it.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

Most people here apparently missed that small piece of information.

And no, I haven't, but I know someone who installed a Security Pack (I think it was Vista SP1 or SP2) and seemingly everything was deleted. Turned out it was just moved to a "Windows.old" folder, or something along those lines. It didn't happen for me, so I don't know why that happened. Perhaps it's just those once in a blue moon occurrences.

[Lupin]

So, are the files in C:\Documents and Settings\... where they should be, or not?

Only the my user account got affected. It nuked everything inside my folder in C:\Documents and Settings\

I also cleaned the temporary folders in all other accounts but their files were intact.