My Book has gone missing

[antiochus]

I have discovered that on my main back up hard drive all material relating to my book “The Roman Legion: Decoding its Pythagorean Organisational Development” has been cleaned out….meaning completely gone. This is the only part of the hard drive that has been affected. All other data not relating to the book is still intact and has not been disturbed.

Is anyone computer savvy to know what has happened?

[Gunthamund Hasding]

I have discovered that on my main back up hard drive all material relating to my book “The Roman Legion: Decoding its Pythagorean Organisational Development” has been cleaned out….meaning completely gone. This is the only part of the hard drive that has been affected. All other data not relating to the book is still intact and has not been disturbed.

Is anyone computer savvy to know what has happened?

STOP USING THAT COMPUTER
if is important try a rescue company, there are many around that can read your deleted files but stop using that computer NOW, you will pay something for it

where are you located?

sorry about my English but is a sense of urgency here

if you in AU: http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com.au/da...-services/

[antiochus]

My back drive is external. What is strange is only my book material has gone. If it is a corrupt hard drive it is very selective about the material it wants to go missing.

[Flavivs Aetivs]

Maybe a corrupt sector, I'm not THAT tech savvy though so I can't say what it is. Unless you got hacked and it was stolen, or accidentally hit the delete button.

Try a data recovery service of some kind if you can.

[Gunthamund Hasding]

does not matter

if you don't have any other copy then you should ask a company to recover, we paid 360€ for a hard drive here in Germany bur we got ALL data back

if is only your backup drive try using some free or paid cloud based solutions as wee, I have all my files backed up in 2 computers, and in 2 cloud s

I wouldn't try a diagnostic first, but at least I would buy a new drive it costs only 100$ for 1 terra

another possibility is that you accidentally deleted the data

[antiochus]

I have another external drive that I only plug into the computer when I back up my book, and then unplugg it when I have done the backup. All the material is still on that drive so I have not lost my book. Sorry I should have made that clearer. I am puzzled as to how it went missing on the other hard drive. I know I have not accidentally deleted it. However, last week I was hit by a ransom virus and some other data grabbing programs. They were successfully eliminated.

I'm handing over the computer to a technician tomorrow (it's midnight here at present). Maybe they can explain what has happened.

[Gunthamund Hasding]

I suggest you to do pay for an good antivirus, and be aware that there are a lot of "things" out there, I have a cheap netbook that I am using for "risky" stuff

[Eleatic Guest]

I'm handing over the computer to a technician tomorrow (it's midnight here at present). Maybe they can explain what has happened.

You could first check out for yourself the deleted data with Freeware and try to restore it, for example with PC Inspector File Recovery or perhaps better Recuva.

[Gunthamund Hasding]

I'm handing over the computer to a technician tomorrow (it's midnight here at present). Maybe they can explain what has happened.

You could first check out for yourself the deleted data with Freeware and try to restore it, for example with PC Inspector File Recovery or perhaps better Recuva.

I wouldn't try anything if is important, if he had a virus then is possible that data were deleted, I would even try to go to the cops they might help even further

[Vindex]

It is possible that if you have your book chapters open and also are browsing on the internet, any interaction between the web pages and your word documents (ie copying a URL, an interesting link etc) can release Trojan "bugs" or spiders. This could happen at any time and then lie dormant until something activates them. If it is only happening to parts of the book and other files are ok, I would suggest that this is the reason. You need to clean up your disk, and quickly, as the bugs are a bit like Pac-man; they'll munch their way through everything if you are not careful. I would also refresh your anti-virus.

Well done for having a seperate back-up drive though; not many do. But I would also get that cleansed too, just to be safe.

[antiochus]

Moi wrote:
Well done for having a seperate back-up drive though; not many do. But I would also get that cleansed too, just to be safe.

I’ve also been informed by facebook my facebook page has been hacked. According to facebook, whoever is doing it lives in Brisbane, Australia. The computer specialists I gave the computer to believe I have been targeted. The computer has been cleaned. I have now bought another computer. The old computer I will use only for the internet and the new computer will have no connection to the internet.

[Gunthamund Hasding]

your profile here locates you in Thailand/Australia so it might been affected too