Thanks Graham, I'm definitely going to buy recover my files and see what happens. I'll certainly let you know how it goes.
I found something interesting in the
SCANDISK.LOG that explains what seems to have happened. The log is as follows:
ScanDisk checked drive C for problems, with the following results:
Directory structure
Directory entry C:\WINDOWS\_óÿ .éF contained invalid characters in
its filename.
ScanDisk deleted the directory entry.
Directory entry C:\WINDOWS\@ contained invalid characters in its
filename.
ScanDisk deleted the directory entry.
Directory entry C:\WINDOWS\ .@… contained invalid characters in its
filename.
ScanDisk deleted the directory entry.
ScanDisk detected one or more invalid long filenames.
Directory entry C:\WINDOWS\À contained invalid characters in its
filename.
ScanDisk deleted the directory entry.
File allocation table
Directory entry C:\WINDOWS had an invalid FAT chain.
ScanDisk did not correct the FAT chain.
File system
There were 106,989 lost clusters in 12,228 chains.
ScanDisk reclaimed the lost clusters as free space.
Surface scan
ScanDisk did not perform any tests.
So this is why a handful of folders with approximately 3.5 GB of data was deleted by Scandisk. What's strange is that the folders that were left intact under C:\WINDOWS, have folder names that are '
ALL CAPS.'
Thanks again,
~NeuroB
PS
What happened to the ActionFront Forums! I can't believe it, that was seriously one of the best resources on the net for Data Recovery issues, and I can't believe that Seagate just decided to do away with the forum and all the thousands of archived posts after acquiring ActionFront. Seagate would rather that none of us have any idea how our Hard Drives and DR work. I wish I knew where all the thousands of expert members of that forum went to -- anybody know?