Not sure if I am using this site properly...or not. Just registered. Have lost important documents and spreadsheets while attempting to move them to CD-RW on my e:drive. Have looked everywhere. Nada. Can anyone walk me through this?

The files may have just been moved by mistake and not deleted. If you know one of the exact file names or directory names that you lost, the first thing you should do is run a search on the ENTIRE harddive. You may have mis-dragged the files to the cd writer and actualy moved them into another directory. I have seen this happen many times.

i have a little program called 'drive rescue', its around 1mb, free to download, and can recover files which have been deleted (no, its not like recycle bin) worth a try

I have searched AND searched the hard drive and the e:drive. Question: Could the fact that I have done System Restore a half dozen times since I messed up, have been a disaster? What would happen if I did system restore for back last week...before any of this happened? I guess SR doesn't really mess with those files though does it? I am convinced that the files are in some "hidden" cache...somewhere. I was just in my WINNT file and I noticed a ton of BLUE files with "uninstall" as one of the words. What's with the blue font??

Dear Some Guy: Sounds interesting. Can you give me more info? What would I have to "remember" in order for this to work?

I do believe I have located my missing files. I hit *cache and have come up with 72 files. Four of them are "database"... All of the files have new file extensions that I do not recognize. I don't know what to do next. The files wont open. I can't tell what most of them are. My databases have icons beside them that I do believe are systems icons. They are a green and an orange coloured gear widgety looking thingy. I tried to open a couple of the files...no luck. What to do now?