Major problems with the computer this week, and I'm not sure what the heck happened still.

I've got a Dell Dimension 4450 less than a year old running Windlow XP Home. Everything has been running fine, but when I booted up Wednesday night, all six user account icons were set to a picture of a chessboard. THought this was weird, until I logged onto my user account and EVERYTHING was GONE. All my settings and ALL my files in My Documents. All the folders and subfolders were there, just completely empty, clean as a whistle, nada. :confused:

The other five users, however, were not affected, with no files missing ohter than their user Icon's changed to the chess board, but I think that was because the pictures used were under my documents that were wiped out, and the chess board might be the default. Ran system restore to two days prior, settings OK, but still no files. Nothing in Recycle bin either, except a couple old things :af:

First thought was a virus, but McAffee virus scan picks up nothing. The computer seems to be running OK. The properties of the folders indicated they were last modified at 5:23 PM; my wife said she was online at this time, and had to shut down because AOL froze up.

I run AOL on a phone line modem, is it possible I was hacked and somebody deleted ALL my files for the fun of it? Or does anybody know of a virus or bug in XP that does this? I am screwed big time. :(

toonoc,, you weren't hacked in a way where someone deleted all your files but rather a victim of a trojan. Viruses today are being turned out so fast that most anti virus companies are behind some 2-3 weeks... :(

More then likely your situation is because of a security and policy hack... It's probably the most annoying hack on the internet and there is almost little or nothing that can prevent someone from getting attack...

try these solutions
C:\Documents and Settings\***username***\Desktop
see if your icons are there

then run regedit...
find this key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Group Policy Objects\LocalUser\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\Explorer

in the screen find the key nodesktop and delete it

also check
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Policies\Explorer

if NoDesktop is there also delete it aswell

restart your computer


hope it helps

Leptar, didn't find the "no desktop" key in the regedit. It wasn't the desktop icons that were gone, it was all of the files in all my document folders that went missing. None of the folders or subfolders were deleted though, just the contents. Still no problems running the computer since, and the system restore brough back my desktop shortcuts. :confused:

Try just doing a search for all docs or all jpegs. If you remember one of them that you had like your resume or fish picture, see if it is there.

Search for all *.doc (or *.jpeg or.jpg) in the search bar. This will search for all docs on the hard drive.