Disappearing windows??

My son got mad because his mum wouldn't let him get a video.

So he went into his sister's room, and says he turned off her computer without shutting down windows. He's only 10, and he doesn't know DOS stuff, so I dunno what else he could've done beside what he said.

Now the PC will not boot to windows. A quick check with a DOS disk and some files are still on the drive, but most of the directories, including windows, are gone.

I couldn't run scandisk for floppy as it said it needed himem.sys loaded , but I've taken the HDD out and am in the process of scanning with R-Studio, my file restoring utility, and have recovered most of the files.

But what would have caused this?? Does turning off a PC without shutting down do this??

BTW, this PC runs NAV 2002, as well as UD and FaD.

Thanks for any comments
Mick

[NeoStarO1]

Well not sure if this page will help out but this I am reading on several different pages. What OS are you using? himem.sys is a required file that needs to load, its extended memory.

Check this one page out and see if it helps give you any clues.
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000425.htm

other than that I am not really sure. Just googling, so not sure why it would make your windows directory all disapear. It shouldn't do that just from a hard shut off.

It's win98SE.

Hmmm, I think I figured it. There was only one directory left in c:\, but it seems ALL the other directories were inside that one!!
Including the swapfile.

Now, I know you can't do that whilst windows is running, so how in heck it happened I have no idea. R-Studio found and recovered all the files and directories (phew! ), so looks like she'll be back in business again pretty soon.

BUT - how did this happen?!?!

Not a virus that I can figure - NAV 2002 was active and up to date.

Maybe I'll never know...

Cheers
Mick

[NeoStarO1]

Hmm interssting, I wonder if the foldered didn't get accidently dragged into the one folder during a temper tantrum and when that happen the computer got shut off. I don't know, its really hard to say when you only know the computer was turned off.

Glad to know your directories are still there.
Maybe someone during the day during waking hours will have the elilusive answer we seek.

glad to know not all is gone.

[tobu]

I dont think you can drag everything into one folder. It would stop you if you were in windows. "This file is in use blah blah i'm a crappy OS blah blah blah!".

How much content was on the computer? I know in with my current hd state it would take at least an hour to re-allocate all those files.

Dont know what it could be!

[Brainchild]

Well Mick I can't be of any help either.That is a really strange thing, glad youre about to get it fixed though

I think TBC is right with his diagnosis blah blah blah

It's only a 3.2GB drive. But 3.0GB was what was missing. Dunno what happened.

Drive seems OK. Haven't tried to load windows yet - will do later.

Weird.

Cheers
Mick