Windows 10: Win 10 Desktop - one folder with 30 subfolders completely gone

Hi & help! *cry

At a total loss here. Win 10 HP EliteDesk 800 G4 about 7 months old. 1TB External backup always running. No issues with either and about 150 folders with many more subfolders (pics, videos, business files, the usual) Don't access many business folders consistently and none since Covid started, but today needed a picture - and -- the ENTIRE business photo folder is completely gone.

Gone from the PC. Gone from the backup. Every other folder, subfolder and file is there in both places as usual. Nothing else missing. Folder was too big to not notice if I mistakenly moved or deleted. Tried searching by folder and subfolder name - nothing on either device. It could have been gone since March, or gone yesterday - no idea since I hadn't gone to look for anything in a while. It's been there prior since around 2013, though, with no issues - on the last 3 desktops I've had.

Found a handful of the missing images I had posted elsewhere and searched both devices by file name. I thankfully did find some of those in a few old phone upload folders (many hundreds of photos all in one folder direct from camera roll, nothing organized like the missing folder was.) however it did NOT appear anywhere else. It's clear that folder is just 100% gone.

I've changed to "show all files and folders" - nothing
Looked in every other folder everywhere - nothing
Looked on the backup drive - nothing
Looked on every USB drive - nothing

I can't imagine how it would dissapear from both devices; even if say I deleted or moved the whole thing by mistake from my desktop (not likely) - it should have been on the backup drive!

I am stuck - any troubleshooting steps would be greatly appreciated before I call it lost -- then spend about 8 hours going through whatever old folders I have to pick the pictures out one by one and re create 30 replacement folders *Sad

Thanks all!

:)

 

List all file folders, followed by subfolders and files in them was in Windows 7. Is it possible to get this list in Win 10

List all file folders, followed by subfolders and files in them was in Windows 7. Is it possible to get this list in Win 10 in the same order?

 

windows 10 deleted my desktop files

Step 1 - I upgraded to Win 10 and lost all my files on Desktop.

Step 2 - Found the files in Network - USers- Desktop

copied all files again to desktop.

Step 3- Restarted my machine again and lost desktop files again.

Step 4 - As suggested did the following as listed below but dont find my files.

• Press “Windows + E”, open This PC/Computer
• Open Local Disc C, open Windows.old
• Click on Users, select your User name
• Go to desktop folder

Cant find my files. Why is Win 10 deleted files again and again from Desktop ?.

 

How to copy a list of subfolders from a folder to a system folder

I was able to copy the Documents regular folder saved on the separate drive and pasted it onto the Documents system folder in the C drive. I was advised by a Microsoft representative that the copy and paste should place the subfolders directly under the
system folder. Unfortunately, the Documents regular folder is now a subfolder in the Documents system folder.

I would need to drag and drop each of the 30 subfolders onto the Documents system folder since I have not found a method to simply highlight all the subfolders as I would do with a list of files to do this in one operation.

Do I need to use a console command to do this or is there another way? If a console command please provide one since I have not used the console for years.