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[jwsb]

I have VideoWave Movie Creator 1,6,676,1ENG

Tonight I opened it up hoping to burn a DVD, and could not find any of the mpeg or avi files I had previously captured or burned.  They are simply gone.

I checked free space on my hard drive to find that it is showing about 20GB more free space than it should.

The missing files weren't accidentally deleted.

Can anyone give me some help in recovering these missing files?  Some are irreplacable.

Many thanks,
Jeff

[ml]

GONE? That doesn't sound good. Especially since you've now got 20 Gb more free space.

You've got a couple of choices to make. Movie Creator doesn't normally delete files by itself so something else has happened. That could be a hardware problem with the hard disk or something like a computer virus or worm which has either eaten(deleted) the files or changed the file name extensions.

If the file are irreplaceable, you're safest route is to not use that computer until you decide what to do. Usually when files are 'deleted', they are still on the hard drive, but the OS (Windows) has lost the filename in it's index.

1. There are companies that can recover files on a hard drive if they haven't been overwritten by another program (Hence, the advice not to use the computer.)

2. There are also file recovery programs available for purchase. Some will give you a free trial for download and will show you what files they can recover. (Download these on a friend's computer and run them from your floppy or CD drive.) Now I don't know a lot about any of them, so I cannot recommend any of them. You might want to research them before you buy.

3. If your hard disk is getting ready to fail, then you might need a company that specializes in retrieving files. Unfortunately, you'd have to run a diagnostic test to see if the drive is going to fail and that might overwrite the files.

4. I DO NOT recommend because I don't think it will help since you've now got more disk space, and that would be to do a Windows\ Search for the files to see if something has changed the file extensions.

Edited by mlpasley, 13 February 2006 - 05:29 AM.