Requesting Help: Missing Directories

[Bossman]

I'm currently going through the aftermath of an "Disk Read Error" problem and used chkdsk /r to get my computer running again. However now I'm seeing that I'm missing a large chunk of my folders and files in the directory on my hard drive.

For some reason I can still access files and run programs, like World of Warcraft, if there's already a shortcut on my start menu for it. However I can't open up the folder and examine the contents, it simply just isn't there.

Just how bad is the situation here? How can I get these missing directories and files to show up again on my computer?

 

[TeeJayHoward]

Easiest way I can think of to fix this is to boot off of a knoppix disk. Hell, while you're there, you could copy the files you want over to a "working" drive/partition/whatever, and just wipe out the "bad" drive/partition/whatever.

If knoppix won't see the files, the next step would be to grab some sort of freeware utility designed for recovering data. I've never used any personally, so I cannot recommend a specific piece of software.

If that fails, and the data is that important to you, you might want to consider sending it in to a data recovery center. Of course, at this point in time, you're looking at thousands of dollars to get your data back. (It cost the college I was working at something like $3,000 to recover the data from one of our servers. Amazingly, our budget for backups increased the next year.)