Lost All files from Documents After Restart – No Recovery Found

fgr1990 · Monday at 4:21 AM

Hi everyone,

I'm dealing with a serious issue at my school where one of our teachers has lost all their documents after a restart, and despite multiple recovery attempts, we haven't been able to locate them. Hoping someone here might have insights!

Issue Summary:

Teacher attempted to move the Documents folder to the Desktop.
Shortly after, Windows 11 received an update (only an antivirus definition update).
After restarting, the Documents folder was completely empty—all files gone.
Other folders like Downloads and Pictures remain intact.
Searching for specific files yields no results.

What We've Tried:

Checked OneDrive (including the Recycle Bin) – no files found.
Checked for temporary profiles – user profile appears normal.
Verified Documents folder location – no redirection detected.
Ran file recovery using Hiren’s Boot USB – no deleted files detected.
Looked for Previous Versions / Shadow Copies – none available.
Checked Event Viewer logs – no obvious signs of file system changes.

Concerns:

The fact that file recovery tools found nothing is alarming—almost as if the files never existed.
Could the attempted folder move have caused an issue with file paths or permissions?
Is there any possibility that Windows Update (even though it was just an AV definition update) could have triggered something unexpected?

Next Steps:

We’d love to hear if anyone has encountered something similar or has other troubleshooting ideas.

Any help would be greatly appreciated—these were all the teacher’s lesson plans, and losing them is a huge setback.

Thanks in advance!

XxXxX · Monday at 6:07 AM

have you attempted to move the documents folder back to its default location.
right click the documents folder > properties > location
then click 'restore default'

then check the documents folder for contents.
best of luck, Steve ..

FreeBooter · Monday at 6:36 AM

If you have restore points you can browse files on any recovery points using ShadowExplorer.

ShadowExplorer.com - Downloads

ShadowExplorer is a graphical front end for the Windows Vista Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). Easily restore previous versions of deleted files. It works with all editions of Windows Vista.

www.shadowexplorer.com

kelper · Monday at 7:44 AM

You could download Voidtools Everything and search for documents. Just ensure that it is indexing all the drives in use.

Downloads - voidtools

www.voidtools.com

The school really should have a backup strategy. A backup could have been restored in a few minutes and would have guarded against this mishap.

Eksy61 · Monday at 9:12 AM

Maybe the Documents folder is still there but has become invisible.

Make sure "Show Hidden Items" is turned on in the File Explorer view options.

Then check your antivirus program's logs. Most antivirus programs will quarantine suspicious files and folders. (And putting the Documents folder on the desktop is suspicious.) That will make them impossible to view by normal means. If so, you can command the antivirus program to accept the files as OK.

If all that fails, it's time to call a professional data recovery service. Shut down the computer immediately (so the files won't get overwritten). Follow their instructions to send them the drive.

kelper · Monday at 9:49 AM

Look in c:\windows\users\

For each user listed, open the Documents folder

RD Mercer · Monday at 9:58 AM

Sometimes as I said "sometimes" you can right click on the (C:) in explorer...properties...tools and check disk, and hope for a miracle. I have used this process to see some files show up after the check disk and reboot.

kelper · Monday at 10:11 AM

Is the Documents folder still visible on the desktop now? If it is this

On the Desktop, right-click the "Documents" folder.
Click Properties.
Go to the Location tab.
Click Restore Default.
Click Apply.
When asked, choose "Move files" if you want the contents of the Desktop version merged into the restored location.

pseymour · Monday at 11:06 AM

Homies,

If you redirect the Documents folder to the Desktop, the folder goes away, and it disappears from Explorer. There is no right-clicking on the docs folder to redirect it back to its original location. That's why you get this big scary message when you do it.

kelper · Monday at 11:51 AM

pseymour said:
Homies,

If you redirect the Documents folder to the Desktop, the folder goes away, and it disappears from Explorer. There is no right-clicking on the docs folder to redirect it back to its original location. That's why you get this big scary message when you do it.

View attachment 136401

Well, they managed to move it! What happens if you drag the folder or use cut-and-paste?

I'm not daft enough to try it!!!! I tried something similar years ago when I was trying to NIX OneDrive.

Actually, I am daft enough to try it as I can always restore from a backup and it might be fun.

kelper · Monday at 12:00 PM

@fgr1990

Can you ask the teacher EXACTLY how he/she moved the Documents folder to the Desktop?

Did they drag it?
Did they copy and paste?
Or did they go into properties... location?

This might help us. My gut feeling is that the files needed were never deleted; they are somewhere.

bobkn · Monday at 12:10 PM

Is the folder C:\Users\(username)\Documents still present? (Use the users's username.) With files?

If so, I'd copy the files to a safe location before continuing to mess around.

kelper · Monday at 12:19 PM

As the OP said, the Documents folder is empty. Why not read this thread from the beginning, it's not long?

bobkn · Monday at 12:35 PM

kelper said:
As the OP said, the Documents folder is empty. Why not read this thread from the beginning, it's not long?

I did.

I wasn't certain that the statement is true. I hoped that it was a link issue, rather than explicit deletion of the contents of the folder.

I dimly recall of some data being lost after an update when the user had moved a library. The update didn't go well with that. I hope nothing like that has happened here.

kelper · Monday at 12:44 PM

The OP said the folder appeared to be empty.

kelper · Monday at 12:53 PM

I will unwatch this thread since the OP is online but can't pay us the courtesy of a reply. I even PM'd him/her with a request to engage.

glasskuter · Monday at 1:22 PM

FIrst of all, you can not move a default user folder into another default user folder. You can move a default user folder to another drive. Secondly, her original document folder was not in her user folder to start with. It was in Onedrive. This complicates the issue even further
She should have made a shortcut to the folder on the desktop.
Only if the files were on the system drive, you can scan the system with a file recovery program such as Recuva. There are others both paid and free. If none of her files are detected nor are they in onedrive, I think they are gone. Only option you could try if the files were originally in onedrive is contact MS support to see if they can help recover them. But don't hold your breath.

kelper · Monday at 1:25 PM

glasskuter said:
FIrst of all, you can not move a default user folder into another default user folder. You can move a default user folder to another drive. Secondly, her original document folder was not in her user folder to start with. It was in Onedrive. This complicates the issue even further
She should have made a shortcut to the folder on the desktop.
Only if the files were on the system drive, you can scan the system with a file recovery program such as Recuva. There are others both paid and free. If none of her files are detected nor are they in onedrive, I think they are gone. Only option you could try if the files were originally in onedrive is contact MS support to see if they can help recover them. But don't hold your breath.

Who said it was a female?

TraderGary · Monday at 1:29 PM

glasskuter said:
FIrst of all, you can not move a default user folder into another default user folder. You can move a default user folder to another drive. Secondly, her original document folder was not in her user folder to start with. It was in Onedrive. This complicates the issue even further
She should have made a shortcut to the folder on the desktop.
Only if the files were on the system drive, you can scan the system with a file recovery program such as Recuva. There are others both paid and free. If none of her files are detected nor are they in onedrive, I think they are gone. Only option you could try if the files were originally in onedrive is contact MS support to see if they can help recover them. But don't hold your breath.

OneDrive has its own cloud Recycle Bin that is effective for 30 days. One should be able to restore the files from there if OneDrive was involved.

pseymour · Monday at 1:31 PM

glasskuter said:
FIrst of all, you can not move a default user folder into another default user folder. You can move a default user folder to another drive.

Right, but you can move the contents of the folder into another user folder, and the original will disappear. I did it in VM to grab that screenshot above.

glasskuter said:
Secondly, her original document folder was not in her user folder to start with. It was in Onedrive. This complicates the issue even further

Right-o, and I don't have a OneDrive account I'm willing to mess with as a test. :) As kelper ~~thread~~ said, this seems to be a drive-by thread, until we get more clarification.

Lost All files from Documents After Restart – No Recovery Found

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