Windows 10: Downloaded Files Disappeared

Well this a new one, yesterday I was downloading a movie, via Utorrent as I have done so many times before. As I do with all my films, I saved them in the directory downloads / Tv shows and films / films / movie title. As I expected, the torrent downloaded fine without any issues and I was about to get ready to watch the film when I noticed something odd. The folder containing TV shows had completely disappeared. Additionally, I then checked the films folder, to notice all but 4 films (Including the one being downloaded) had also disappeared. I've spent the past hour researching, running malware scans (found nothing), losing the files doesn't bother me, at most, its an inconvenience. What's concerning me is how this could have happened, as mentioned above, I have ran multiple scans and found no evidence that the torrent could have been infected. I've looked on a google for several hours and found very few cases of something like this happening. If anyone could shed any light on this situation or has experienced anything like it before, your assistance would great. Again apologies if this is not in the right place.

(edit - I should point out, when I say disappeared, I mean complete gone from my system. I have checked the recycle bin, tried searching the names of movies and so on. I only have to look at my partitioned drive to see the additional 150GB of space that it now has.)

Coincidentally, about 2 hours before this happened, I thought to myself I should really purchase I portable hard drive to back up my downloads folder and even went on amazon to do a price check! I think the big upstairs is telling me to stop torrenting!


Seriously thought, thanks for any help you guys can give, if you need any more information I'll try and give as much as I can.

:)

 

Download file Disappeared

Hi Richard,

Thank you for the reply.

Are you referring to Download folder?

Method 1:

If you are referring to Download folder, I suggest you to check if you can find the download files in the following location or not.



1. Go to your downloads folder (C:\Users\”Your user name “\downloads).

2. Check if you can access all the files.

Method 2:

To make sure the computer is free from virus, I suggest you to run Microsoft Safety Scanner.
The Microsoft Safety Scanner is a free downloadable security tool that provides on-demand scanning and helps remove virus, spyware, and other malicious software. It works with your existing antivirus software.

Safety Scanner - Windows Defender Security Intelligence

Warning:

1) The Microsoft Safety Scanner expires 10 days after being downloaded. To rerun a scan with the latest anti-malware definitions, download and run the Microsoft Safety Scanner again.

2) If you run the virus scan the program that is infected with virus will get deleted. So you have to reinstall the program. Also if the files and folders are affected with virus then they might even get deleted.



Hope this information helps. Reply to the post with an updated status of the issue so that we can assist you further.

 

Download file Disappeared

The whole file that contains my downloads.

 

Hey JJLyon-

Have you tried doing a search for the actual files themselves? You might want to have a look at the Everything program, which is a good search utility to have around anyhow.

Also, you might take a quick look in the OneDrive folder in case they were Auto-saved. See HERE.



Edit:
I just noticed that you already did try a search, so I guess disregard that part of this post.

 

Are the downloads legal? If not it wouldn't be legal for us to help you.

 

Hi b1rd

Thanks for you advice, I tried both of your suggestions.

The only thing I have managed to find is the original torrent file in Utorrents app data. No files could be seen in one drive either. Thanks for your help.

WinUser, That's fine if you don't feel comfortable with the legality of the issue I don't expect you to help. As I mentioned in my original post, I'm not bothered that I've lost the files. I'm just curious if anyone can shed light on how this might have happened.

 

Just a thought, but is there a chance the files need to be 'un-hidden' via the Folder Options? I did note where you said that you have 150 Gb of extra space, so it does seems as if the 150 GB of files are somehow gone.

Hopefully you'll get the cause, as this is interesting.

 

Not from what I can see. I've tried everything that i'm capable of and spoken to as many people who I can about it. No one as of yet has an answer to it. I agree, it's intriguing isn't it. I'm just glad it wasn't more personal files as everything that is lost is replaceable. That being said, I am still concerned something similar may happen again, so I really would like to find out the cause.

I'll keep updating if anything comes to light, though something tells me this will go down as a mystery!

JJ