Windows did it to me

[Renegade]

The other day my computer auto-rebooted and did a restore/reformat and deleted all my apps and made the typical Windows changes. I'm still trying to get back to normal. I tried to do a recover but it only had the current date available. Windows has strange ways of playing music and opening jpeg files.
I still have the usual crap no one seems to be able to help me with: I want to download a picture and get Custom Files so I have to click All Files - so irritating that I cannot change that. I also many times cannot open a picture telling me there is not enough memory so I check and there is plenty of memory. The last issue NO ONE can solve and it's been going on for many years are that some pictures will not open: Windows Photo Viewer can't open this picture because the file appears to be damaged, corrupted or is too large. One is 14.8KB
As an aside, I think I finally got the white screen back in Google Chrome who arbitrarily changed to a black screen

 

[Bighorn]

I want to download a picture and get Custom Files so I have to click All Files - so irritating that I cannot change that.

That may be a problem with file associations, the type/extension isn't recognized properly.

The last issue NO ONE can solve and it's been going on for many years are that some pictures will not open: Windows Photo Viewer can't open this picture because the file appears to be damaged, corrupted or is too large. One is 14.8KB

Because it can view lots of file types I keep a copy of QuickView Plus installed on my main computer and try opening a problem file in it, most times will show if a file is truly corrupted.

As an aside, I set File Explorer and the previous Windows Explorer to always show file extensions so I know what I'm working with. But I've been doing that since the days of MS-DOS and Windows 3.xx.

 

[Garyw]

The other day my computer auto-rebooted and did a restore/reformat and deleted all my apps and made the typical Windows changes. I'm still trying to get back to normal. I tried to do a recover but it only had the current date available.

I suggest that you start making system images of your system drive on a regular basis, then a simple restore will put you back in business. Macrium Reflect (free) is excellent for this.

 

[Renegade]

That may be a problem with file associations, the type/extension isn't recognized properly.


Because it can view lots of file types I keep a copy of QuickView Plus installed on my main computer and try opening a problem file in it, most times will show if a file is truly corrupted.

As an aside, I set File Explorer and the previous Windows Explorer to always show file extensions so I know what I'm working with. But I've been doing that since the days of MS-DOS and Windows 3.xx.

Quick View Plus pricing starts at $99.00 per feature, per year. They do not have a free version. Quick View Plus does not offer a free trial.
I am not financially able to purchase these programs but thank you anyway. Microsoft should deal with it instead of sending me SPAM emails daily...

 

[Renegade]

I suggest that you start making system images of your system drive on a regular basis, then a simple restore will put you back in business. Macrium Reflect (free) is excellent for this.

Seems I made a mistake by downloading Macrium. It did it's thing and now I cannot find my external hard drive - no more F drive and the new drives listed are empty. Now what do I do? Worst part is I now cannot open MS Money as it opened and saved to the external hard drive...

 

[Renegade]

I guess at age 80 I have become retarded letting someone advise me especially to download Macrium. It has deleted some of my most important files like my URL Passwords and Paint Shop Pro 6. Wonder if there's a way to restore the computer prior to this fiasco? The stress of this ef-up is stressing me to no end. It will be a while before I cannot find other files it deleted, why?

 

[Garyw]

I guess at age 80 I have become retarded letting someone advise me especially to download Macrium. It has deleted some of my most important files like my URL Passwords and Paint Shop Pro 6. Wonder if there's a way to restore the computer prior to this fiasco? The stress of this ef-up is stressing me to no end. It will be a while before I cannot find other files it deleted, why?

OK, you downloaded Macrium Reflect. What did you do after you downloaded it? Did you make an image and then restore it?

My suggestion to download Macrium Reflect and start making images was not a suggestion on how to fix your current problems. It was a suggestion on how to fix future problems.

 

[Renegade]

I guess I did NOT understand all the computer jargon with Macrium - I thought it was fairly straight forward - my bad - live and learn...
Don't understand "current problems' vs. 'future problems' - seems to me they were both the same...

 

[Bastet]

Macrium will not delete files or programs. It is designed to create an image of the partition containing Windows or if chosen the entire drive. If you stored all your files & programs on the external hard drive & chose clone then this will overwrite the external drive with Windows.
If you placed a tick in all the boxes & then created an image (not a clone) onto an external hard drive then you’d have a .img file on the external drive..
Perhaps if you explained what exactly you did within Macrium we can then work out what happened.

 

[Renegade]

All I did was run it. It did DELETE Paint Shop Pro 6 and (so far) my URL user and password file. The other thing I've noticed now is how sloooooooooowwwwwwwwwww the computer is running and how long it takes to open a file. I am now 80 years old and it is getting too much for me. I used to be computer savvy in the old DOS days, writing and modifying batch and config,sys files, changing out computer parts, etc. Started with Earthlink in their first year after buying Netscape 2 and doing a initialization stream to get on the WWW. Then along came Windows;-( and it all went downhill from there...

 

[Bastet]

Running the program should’ve opened the screen allowing you to choose what to image, it would show you the partitions on the drive at the top then the destination drive’s partitions (if any) at the bottom of the screen.
Did this show?

 

[Renegade]

Wow! If only it were that easy. I did not see any of this (but then I wear reading glasses sitting here)...

 

[Bastet]

Can you remember what you saw exactly?

 

[Renegade]

 

[Bastet]

Thanks. That looks like you may have erroneously chosen ‘Clone’ option which will overwrite the destination drive.
I would try Recuva to see if any of your files & programs can be recovered.

Download Recuva | Recover deleted files, free!

Recover and un-delete files with Recuva, the award-winning file recovery tool by the makers of CCleaner. Download the latest version today.

www.ccleaner.com

 

[Renegade]

Okay, so I downloaded Recuva and it only found one file of which I have already restored. BTW, CCleaner I have used since it's inception. I first sent CCleaner to the tech at TV station 5 in Sacramento who tried it and sent me back a good review. Have been using it ever since. I have to laugh at my picture taken some 15 years ago;-)
Oh, thank you for your time. Now if I could get the computer to go back to it's original speed with the SSD drive, I would be happy!

 

[Bastet]

Sorry that it didn’t work.
How old is the SSD?
Can you remember if anything happened just before the drive became slow?

 

[Renegade]

The SSD was put in earlier this year but did not give me much extra speed.
What happened when the drive slowed down? I installed Macrium.
...but... I just did a disk clean up both the C and the new H drive, cleared the history in Google (Ctrl H) and ran CCleaner and it seems to be back to it's usual speed.
Thank you for taking time with me - rare these days...
Mancunian?

 

[Bastet]

You’re welcome @Renegade.
Glad to hear the SSD is running correctly after a cleanup.
I’m based in Manchester, U.K. & those who are born in the City are Mancunians.

 

[Renegade]

Off topic. Back in the 80's I was in an office in L.A. that had people from all over. One day I asked Kevin Hutchins about Married with Children and Peggy's mother living in Wanker County and if he knew where that was. He told me there was probably an English script writer on the show and explained the term to me - learned something new that day. Also had a Geordie friend...