It's now looking rather bleak. Most of the stuff on the old drive was...old. But I'd made one horrible mistake. First time since 1983 that I've lost data.
When I changed to W7, I stripped the new faster drive and copied across quite a bit of stuff. However, somehow, I didn't copy all the photos. Thousands of them. It was my intention to filter out the dross as I did it, and then I forgot. ( I do a lot of forgetting these days.)
The old disc is really corrupt. My book folder has gone, along with its 20 or so sub folders. Just gone. That's backed up in six places and three addresses, so hopefully that'll be okay. But the DVDs of the photos may or may not be at the kids houses. I'll know later today. Whatever, they'll be out of date.
I just could never imagine something like this happening to me. A few of the pictures can be seen in thumbnail form. Any attempt to copy them fails.
The old disc may just have failed.
It may have been got at by a virus. I was using Avast until recently, but not in the last few days.
Or, it may have been messing with the master disc and Explorer. It occurs to me that the self cleaning of Explorer out of logical E drive was a clue to W7 getting rid of things it doesn't like.
There is a chance I may recover the files, but time is an issue now. I'm supposed to be remodeling the house while the Rivetess is away, and three weeks from her return, it looks like I've thrown a hand grenade into it, then got drunk before starting work. Nights are spent on the book. Neighbors are getting up when I go to bed.
Son has just phoned. he's found Zar. Free or $49 Anyone know about this, or have recommendations for another recovery program?