Computer erased everything?

Question

Ok I was getting a lot of blue screens at start up so I tried a couple of things. First I tried to restore the computer to an earlier time. It didn't work. Then on the next try I selected, "Last Known Good Configuration" at the safe mode screen that kept coming up. Well that time it finally worked (or maybe the one right after). Anyway, now all of my documents, pictures and settings are gone. (My girlfriends too, actually its her computer.. so I'm dead! ;) ) When I log on to Windows now it keeps treating this as if its my first time signing on. It keeps asking me to take a tour of Windows etc. But all of the software we installed is still there. Computer games, iTunes etc. But all of our files are gone. I tried restore the computer back to a couple of earlier times, but to no avail. I don't think it could have erased all of that stuff because it started the computer right up and there's no way it could have erased all of those files so quickly. So how I do get all of that stuff back?

Answer 1

Look in windows explorer on your C: drive in the "Documents and Settings" directory, you may find that going back has removed the user you used to use.  This shouldn't delete the user's files, however and these will probably be under there.  If not, try to remember a distinctive filename that was in your docs and use the search function to search all your had drives for that filename.

Unfortunately, these things can happen (hard drives can go wrong too) and it illustrated the importance of regular backups.

Good luck