Windows XP Erased my files, severe OS Bug

  • Thread starter Thread starter Colin Higbie
  • Start date Start date
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Colin Higbie

I have posted about this on several forums and not received a single answer. I
can only conclude that Windows has a major flaw/bug that no one knows how to
deal with. Windows, as far as I can tell, deleted all of my files that were
stored on an Offline drive, including those I wrote on the offline computer -
in other words those files do not exist anywhere else because they were never
replicated to another system.

THERE IS NO WORSE BUG THAN AN OS THAT DELETES USER FILES.

I left a domain. I lost access to the Offline files in that domain and on
another computer in another domain. Furthermore, all the files that were not
changed on my local (offline) system vanished. This was acceptable - at least
all the files that were changed or new on the offline system were still there.
I couldn't access them, but at least I could see they existed.

I asked where the Offline Files are stored in the hope of getting direct
access to them and taking ownership of them directly. No response.

I tried to use RunAs, but because the security principals were gone when I
left the domain, it didn't recognize the user I wanted to use for RunAs. I
posted on this. No response.

I finally joined the second domain, hoping to then be able to replicate my
files back onto that network. At this point, it DELETED ALL OF MY OFFLINE
FILES. The Offline Files folder is now totally empty. The files I had written
and saved to offline folders are lost.

IS THERE ANYWAY TO RECOVER THESE FILES? COULD THEY BE SOMEPLACE ELSE?

Thank you for any help. If this is not a know issue, please document this as a
bug for MS.

- Colin
 
I finally called MS, was told this would cost $245 to troubleshoot. Small
price to pay for the lost files. It turned out the solution was to directly
access the files in the Windows\CSC folder. Their dates and names were
meaningless, but the files were still all there intact with the same sizes.
All I had to do was take ownership of them and then try to figure out what
each file was (800034c6 is a typical file name).

MS agreed that this was a bug with the Offline Files system and didn't charge
me.

- Colin
 
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