Files and Folders Disappearing in Windows 10

Sudden disappearance of files and folders in Windows 10 can be a nightmare for anyone. Our computer is not just a physical device. It holds a lot of precious data, which acts as our digital asset. As many people and businesses depend on computers for their day to day activities, sudden disappearance of files and folders can halt the entire business operations and cause the situation of panic and uncertainty.

Causes

• Your files/ folders are hidden by default. You have accidentally changed a system setting that hides Hidden items.
• You forgot to change the attribution of your hidden files/ folders.
• Your hard disk is dying and causing disappearance of data
• Your computer is infected by a ransomware malware
• Your data is permanently lost and you may need to perform a data recovery.
• Windows moved your data to another location after a critical Upgrade
• You’re trying to find files created by another user account on the same machine while you don’t have the access permissions

 Resolutions

I. Show Hidden Files and Folders

Were the files originally hidden? You might have accidentally unchecked a setting that shows hidden files and folders on your disk. Fire up File Explorer and enable showing hidden items.

1. Double-click This PC icon on your Desktop, or open the File Explorer through its pinned Taskbar icon.
2. Click on the View tab on the Ribbon interface.
3. Check the Hidden items checkbox under Show/ hide.

II. Change Files/ Folders Attribution

It may be possible that the files or folders’ attribution have been changed to hidden. You may want to uncheck the Hidden attribution option from the File/ Folder Properties dialog to revert to the original state. Here’s how:

1. Right-click the top-most folder that contained the disappeared files/ folders and select Properties. In the case of files, select multiple files you want to unhide. You can select multiple files at once by selecting the first file in sequence, pressing and holding the Shift key of your keyboard and then selecting the other file to end selection at that point. After selecting your files, right-click the selection and choose Properties.
2. Uncheck the Hidden option from the General tab.
3. Click on OK.

III. Repair Disk Errors

Disk errors are common. Power failure, surge in the electric supply, physical damage, and other issues cause damage to your hard drive and result in disk errors or bad sectors. When your hard drive is dying, you may notice some files and folders disappear or they do not load at all.

Although there is no sure shot way to fix it, you may want to try your luck running the Disk Check-Up tool in Windows.

1. Click the File Explorer icon on your Taskbar.
2. Right-click a drive you want to check for errors. (For the purpose of this article, right-click the drive where you’re facing files/ folders disappearing issue)
3. Select Properties.
4. Click on the Tools tab, followed by the Check button.
5. Click on Scan Drive and follow the on-screen instructions.
6. Windows will notify you whether any disk errors were found or not.

Note: It’s worth mentioning that you may need to reboot your system in order to fix disk errors on your system partition (usually, drive C:\). This is because your operating system cannot fix a drive that is in use. Disk Check-Up will restart your computer and run the process before it starts booting your operating system.

IV. Scan your Computer for Ransomware Malware

Viruses and malware can do many dirty activities. Ransomware is a type of malware that holds a victim’s critical data at ransom. Ransomware targets different files, folders on your hard drive and encrypts them, or sends them to the attacker and deletes the original file. The attacker then demands a ransom to decrypt your files or to make your files available again. Unfortunately, a single ransomware malware could paralyze an entire organization by holding back critical data required for its day to day functioning and other business activities.

If your files and folders are disappearing without any reason, consider scanning your entire computer for malware. Keep in mind you must update your Antivirus database before running the scan for higher accuracy.

Don’t panic. Even if your computer is actually infected with ransomware, you can restore an earlier version of your backups, if available. You may also try your luck with a freeware File Recovery software.

V. Use a Free File Recovery Tool

It may be possible that your data is accidentally deleted by you or another user on the same machine, or an application installed on your computer.

A file recovery software could come to your aid if none of the above solutions work. A data recovery software searches the traces of deleted or lost data on your hard disk, and attempts to recover it on its own. Normally, when you delete a file, your computer deletes reference entries to that file and makes the storage space available to override with new data. Although it is not possible to recover the entire data, a data recovery software uses heuristic algorithms to recover as much information as possible. 

Thankfully, you don’t need to buy an expensive file recovery tool. A popular freeware, Nirsoft PreviousFilesRecovery can do this job pretty well.

Download Nirsoft PreviousFilesRecovery and run it. Now, you’ll need to set the Base folder to the directory that contained disappeared files/ folders.

Make sure to select the Subfolders Depth to Unlimited, otherwise the tool will only recover data from the folder root.

Check-up the options Find previous versions of existing files, Find deleted files and Find deleted folders, and then hit Start.

The process may take some time, typically several minutes or hours, depending on the size of information stored on your drive. Upon completion of this process, you’ll be able to see your files list alongside basic information such as Folder, Item Type, Modification Date, File Size, etc.

VI. Windows 10 Upgrade

Have you performed a major activity such as Windows 10 Upgrade? Don’t worry, Windows 10 Upgrade securely moves your data to another folder on your hard disk during the entire procedure. Your data may have been moved to the C:\Users\Public folder. Some users also reported that Windows renamed the drive letters (like C:\, D:\, etc) and their data was actually found inside other partitions in the D:\Users\UserName folder.

VII. Login to the Original User Account that Created those Files/ Folders

Your files/ folders may disappear if you login to another user account that does not have the privileges to access that information. You may want to switch to the original user account that created those files/ folders.

1. Press Windows Key + X.
2. Select Shut down or Sign out.
3. Select Sign out.
4. Login to the account that created those files/ folders.

Alternatively, you can ask that user account’s administrator to share files with you and provide you with sufficient Read/ Write permissions.