Reappearance of deleted files

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November 10th, 2009, 20:17 PM
captainron19@ao

Reappearance of deleted files

Came across something unusual the other day and was hoping someone could help me.

A while back I had a folder inside fo a subfolder in My Documents (USing Windows XP Home Edition)

I deleted the folder a while back. Recently I realized I needed some of the files in that folder and when i could not find it I figured I must of deleted it but wasnt sure so I performed a windows search for one of the keywords in one of the files.

It told me it found all of the files and I actually saw the deleted folder in c:\users\temp (or somethign similiar) but it actually appeared to be a zipped folder that I was able to open up and copy and paste the files from.

While this was great that I recovered the files, it did make me a bit nervous that there may be other documents on this computer that have been deleted and they are still accessible by other people.

Any recommendations or does anyone even have a reasonf or this happening?
November 12th, 2009, 09:55 AM
PIPER

when you deleted them did you go into your trash bin and dump them from there as well?
November 12th, 2009, 13:34 PM
captainron19@ao

Quote:

Originally Posted by PIPER

when you deleted them did you go into your trash bin and dump them from there as well?

Yes - they were actually deleted a couple of months ago I believe and removed from the recycle bin
November 12th, 2009, 15:26 PM
Dehcbad25

I thought I replied to this thread, but apparently I did not.
First, since you are in Windows XP, the users folder does not exist as a system folder. This folder is started to be used with Vista and 7
So, that alone tells us that Windows itself did not made those copies. Windows uses %WINDIR%\temp for Windows.
If you want to check it for sure, check the enviroment variables (Control Panel>System>Advanced>Enviroment Variables)
That out of the way (and considering you did not edit the enviroment variables), this leaves only user interaction or a program.
Check the security tab for the files in that folder, and see if there is your Windows user listed. If yes, it was most likely user interaction of some type, if not a program (usually as a service, or launched by the system) did it.
Just to be sure, check if you had a backup at some time. Viruses, will not usually copy files to a fake temp folder.
I myself created a temp folder inside my documents for documents I am working on, and honestly I use it only 3% of the time because I forget is there :p