Update has deleted 160ish Gb from my harddrive?

Ante

I'm running Vista64, and about 2 days ago I got one of those things where it installs an update when it was shutting down. At the time, I had around 20Gb free on my harddrive. When I turned it back on, I had 180Gb free. I thought that maybe it had compressed old files, or downloaded some update to compress system files or something like that, but I just noticed that some of my files are missing. Now when I look through WMP, for example, some albums are missing, the folder that they were in is still listed as the source in the player, but the folder doesn't exist.
Does anyone know what's going on here? Has my computer just spontaneously deleted stuff? Is that common?

Thanks

EDIT: I've also tried searching for the missing stuff, and looking for hidden folders, no dice for either.

underdonk

You have a backup of all of your data, right?

TychoCelchuuu

You could try a system restore to before the update. That typically won't bring data back if it's actually gone but if the updat just hid it magically or something it might work.

Mojo_Jojo

I've anecdotal evidence of this happening. And the data was just gone as far as my friend could establish.

Ante

I've been meaning to buy a second hard drive... so that's a no, I don't have a backup.

If I did a system restore, would that delete the game I've been downloading from Steam? It's taking up most of my monthly quota, so I don't want to lose it.

TychoCelchuuu

It shouldn't but it might; System Restore is magic voodoo to me.

Ante

Well, unless anyone knows some safe magic voodoo, I might just have to cut my losses.

I am curious about why my computer suddenly decided to delete big chunks of things, especially given that it deleted whole albums, but left others untouched.

eternalbl

System restore isn't data destructive. It just changes settings and system files.

IE: anything you downloaded should remain, but if you downloaded say winamp and installed it, only the setup file would remain while the program would need to be reinstalled.

System restore is also undo-able.

Slicer

AnteCantelope wrote: »

I've been meaning to buy a second hard drive... so that's a no, I don't have a backup.

If I did a system restore, would that delete the game I've been downloading from Steam? It's taking up most of my monthly quota, so I don't want to lose it.

If you want to try it and play it safe, after your Steam download finishes you could use the option to make a backup and store it on a DVD or something before trying system restore.

underdonk

Also, backup your data. I'm assuming you don't, as you didn't respond to my previous post and are considering cutting your losses. What if the music you lost had instead been the only copy of digital pictures you had of your babies, digital video of your wedding night, or your large collection of original BBW Japanese tentacle porn? I mean, you're entrusting the safety of this information to fucking Windows. Vista. 64.

Ante

underdonk wrote: »

Also, backup your data. I'm assuming you don't, as you didn't respond to my previous post and are considering cutting your losses. What if the music you lost had instead been the only copy of digital pictures you had of your babies, digital video of your wedding night, or your large collection of original BBW Japanese tentacle porn? I mean, you're entrusting the safety of this information to fucking Windows. Vista. 64.

I mentioned earlier on that I've been meaning to buy a new harddrive. At the moment, I can't afford to buy another 1Tb harddrive to backup my whole computer, so I just use my old 30ishGb one to backup important stuff. And I know that an old harddrive is less ideal than a newer one for backing up data, but it's all I've got right now.

Captain Vash

underdonk wrote: »

Also, backup your data. I'm assuming you don't, as you didn't respond to my previous post and are considering cutting your losses. What if the music you lost had instead been the only copy of digital pictures you had of your babies, digital video of your wedding night, or your large collection of original BBW Japanese tentacle porn? I mean, you're entrusting the safety of this information to fucking Windows. Vista. 64.

For god's sake, it's the same number of bits as that old nintendo console.

do a barrel roll!

at any rate, do try the system restore, it may restore lost file directory's, should not affect your steam install at all, and worst case scenario you can undo it.