Windows 10: Missing Files

I have kind of a bizarre thing that happened this morning. For context, I have Windows 10 Home, I believe, installed on an SSD, and I also have an HDD.


So, I was just doing some light photoshop stuff in a program called GIMP when I went to save a file from Google Chrome. For some reason, I got a system error notification saying my Desktop was unavailable, or couldn't be found. I can't remember the exact wording. Sure enough, I Alt + Tab and my Desktop is blank except for the Recycle Bin. Strange, but I wasn't super alarmed as I never save anything I care about losing on the SSD where Windows is installed I had an issue last year where my User Account became unavailable, and I lost everything that was saved in folders specific to that account. I did the first step of troubleshooting and shut down my computer. When I rebooted my computer went straight into BIOS because the SSD with Windows installed wasn't showing up. This has happened before so I just shut down and started up my computer again, and this time it booted into Windows without issue. My User Account was intact, but for some reason, my Desktop was gone. Or so it appeared, anyway. Turns out Windows had created a second Desktop, I'm not sure why, but my old Desktop folder was still available so I just copied the shortcuts and the few loose files I had over and made a backup to be safe. Strange, but no harm done, so I didn't think anything of it.


I decided to work on some music, so I opened a digital audio workstation called Reaper. When the project file loaded, I got a notification saying that some plugins VSTs were missing. After looking into it, I realized that the only plugins that were missing were VST3 plugins, which have a .vst3 file extension instead of just being dynamic-link libraries like regular VSTs I honestly am not sure what makes them different, but VST3 is supposed to have better performance. I did some more digging, and when looking through the folders where my VSTs are stored C:/Program Files/Steinberg/VstPlugins and C:/Program Files x86/Steinberg/VstPlugins I saw that the subfolder containing the VST3 files was empty, except for one file, Anvil by Ignite Amps.


I'm not entirely sure how many files I lost in total, as the only plugins I use VST3 for are Toneforge and Howard Benson Vocals from Joey Sturgis Tones and TS-Racks 5 Brickwall Limiter from IK Multimedia. What's odd to me is the regular VST versions of those plugins, which are just .dll files, were still present and loaded without issue when I loaded them up in Reaper. Not to mention the fact that one single VST3 file was untouched. Thankfully, it's an easy enough fix. I just redownloaded the plugins and rescanned for the VST3 files and everything went back to normal.


If it helps, my computer is a custom model built by Digital Storm. It has an ASUS Motherboard and Intel i7-8700k CPU. I think they might have done a subpar job with the SSD that has the Windows OS installed or something, because, as mentioned, I've had issues with the computer booting into BIOS because the SSD wasn't showing up as well as the issue with my User Account. Honestly, the installation of Windows just seems like it may be unstable somehow, based on the problems I've had. Unfortunately, while I know a decent amount about how to use computers, this is all a bit beyond my depth, and while it's frustrating, it hasn't been enough of a problem for me to take it to an expert as of yet.


Anyway, I'm just curious if the issue I had with my Desktop is related to these files being deleted, and also curious why files from such a specific folder would be deleted... except the one that wasn't anyway. If anyone has any idea what may have caused either of these things, please let me know. If you have any idea what might have caused the issue with my User Account becoming unavailable in the past or general suggestions about things I should try to fix some of these issues, that would be good to know as well.

:)

 

Burning Files To cdr

I tried to drag a .txt file to the burn list, as suggested above, but it will not drop in. I get a message "+add to burn list" but I cannot get it to drop into the burn list. Is there another step I am missing?

 

Why did the startup window get cleared?

I didn't missed any step, the list was gone and gone , even after using lot of programs the programs were not listed in that list.

 

missing file

Hi Jim,

For us to isolate the issue, we will need to ask you a few questions:

• What task are you trying to do every time that you get the error code “missing file rtl160.bpl?”
  
• What troubleshooting steps have you done so far?

Regards.