All the folders and files on desktop disappears after shut down.

KidBuu

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Jun 19, 2012
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This is the third time it has happened in a week. First I lost everything, every file, and folder, from the desktop. I had no idea what happened, tried recovery softwares and they couldn't even find the files. I thought they got sent to Recycle bin, but they're not, its clean.

Yesterday, I created a "Wallpapers" folder and downloaded hundreds of them and kept them there, then I shut it down. Today, the folder's gone. Again recovery softwares couldn't even find a trace.

I recreated the folder, and also added some more folders and random junk files to the desktop as a test. Shut the pc down. An hour later I boot it up, and everything that was on desktop, all the junk I added, everything's gone.

Why is this happening? I scanned PC with Avast and Kaspersky, and there is no malware or virus report, 100% clean.

The files and folders just disappear without even a trace, irrecoverable through any recovery softwares. Please help. Anyone has faced this before? It only happens on the desktop for now, but I am afraid I will lose important data from my drive partitions, in case this starts happening in there too.
 

KidBuu

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Jun 19, 2012
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18,640
I can download files wherever I want to. That's why the "save" box exists. That's not the problem here, though. All my files like word files I created or Photoshop files or some mp3 songs, etc, everything disappeared. It's not just the downloads that disappeared. Executables stay as they are for the software though. All my EXE shortcuts are fine.
 
For what it's worth I use my desktop for Tom's Hardware. I've never had anything disappear.

Hard Drive or Solid State Drive manufacturers have a test you can perform called a SMART test. https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=940 comes from Western Digital. Programs like HwInfo can also scan your drives. That can help to determine if this disappearance is software or hardware related.
 
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