Where did the lost files go? Recover your lost files on hard drive

I turn on my computer as usual, after boot I found some of my files have disappeared but I’m sure I have never delete them. Where did the files go and can I still find back them on the hard drive?

Keep calm! Unexpected data loss on computer is very common if you have no backups. If it is certain that the files aren’t lost by accidental deletion, formatting, partition deletion or resizing, the files just automatically disappear from the computer desktop, hard drive partition, you need to try to find the causes and recover them.

Why the files disappear from your computer?

Upgrading of windows may causes this problem. If you upgrade the windows system, the files on the desktop and the installed programs will be removed. So you need to remember to back up your data on desktop and system drive. If you have created restore points, you still can restore the system to a previous version so that to find your data.

Virus infection may delete or hidden your files on the hard drive. You need to take the antivirus software to scan the entire hard drive to remove the virus. And you can try to unhide the hidden files in File explorer by clicking File Explorer>View, check show hidden files. Then the disappeared files will show up.

Another situation is that your hard drive is dead. If this is the reason for your data loss, you have no chance to recover your data.

How to recover the lost or deleted data from hard drive?

If you lost personal data on the desktop and system drive, system restore cannot help you, they can only restore the system files. If you have no backups, the only solution is to recover with data recovery software. Running the antivirus software can help you to remove the virus, but at the same time, it sometimes will remove your infected files. After killing the virus, you need to retrieve them as soon as possible.

Steps to recover lost data on desktop

Run Hdata recovery software on your computer.

To recover data on desktop, you need to use the software to scan the system drive, generally it is the Drive C. Click Deleted Your files accidentally.

The time for scanning greatly depends on the size of your files in system drive.

After scan, all the recoverable files list here, you can preview them to check which ones to recover.

Select the recovery path for your data. The recovery path is to store your recovered data. If you lost data on system drive, you should choose other partition as the recovery path.