Help! All files and pictures disappeared. Programs empty

[Lindseygirl747]

My 3 1/2 year old PC has been really slow last couple of days. It actually hung online last night and i had to physically shut it down. I turned it on just now and the screen said  Welcome to HP like it was a brand new computer. The home page is not the usual one.  I clicked on Chrome and the screen pops up Welcometo Chrome and how to set up. Ditto for Mozilla Firefox.  Then I go to files and they are empty. Documents and Pictures. gone. Family tree maker is there but it gives me the welcome screen too. i went to Factory Image and it says it was last modified in 2013 - day and year of purchase. It appears empty. It's like my computer has been wiped.  I backed up about a month or so ago, and I was actually going to back up last night but when it hung up, I put it off. I thought that the Factory Image was a back up.  I have Norton antivirus.

What can I do to recover my files? Any suggestions? Do I have a virus? or what happened? Can I fix this myself? Can a computer shop recover files? I'm typing this  on my work laptop. Because I'm not sure about using the computer.

Thank you all so much.

Lindsey

[WAWood]

Lindseygirl747

Hello;

Allow me to welcome you to the HP forums!

These days, the most common hacking of PCs is done using "ransomware" where the attacker encrypts your files and extorts your for money to have them decrypted.  So, it is highly unlikely that you got hacked.

From your description, more likely, your hard drive is failing -- as that would cause a serious slowdown in the PC, and since system files and data files might then be unreadable, what you are seeing now would be the result.

As you continue to use the drive, you're overwriting the files and folders that got erased. The more you use it, the less likely you'll be able to recover anything on it

Your best bet for recovering data now is to do the following:
1) Remove the hard drive from the PC
2) Purchase a USB-to-Hard Driver adapter kit
3) Download and install this utility on a working PC: http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/recover_data_in_3_steps_with_minitool_power_data_recovery_free_...
4) Connect the old drive to the working PC
5) Run the data recovery utility to see what can be retrieved from the old drive.

If that tools does not find what you need, an alternative is Recuva: http://www.piriform.com/recuva

And, if that does not work well, the best tool out there is this one, but only the trial version is free: http://www.file-recovery.com/

Good Luck

[Lindseygirl747]

 That is very helpful. I will try to find an adapter at Best Buy or walmart and give it a shot. i'm now looking at youtube videos on how to do that. Thank you very much. I hope I can get my stuff off. Thank you again. -Lindsey

[Lindseygirl747 · Accepted solution]

I unplugged the computer because I was concerned that if the hard drive was failing, that using it might write over previous data. Also, the power into the house was going on and off for some reason. Since I am not tech savy, I decided to hire a computer expert rather than try to back up my hard drive using the adaptor by myself. When the computer was plugged back in the next day by the computer guy, it came up like usual. All of my files  and pictures were back. The screen looked normal.  Yay!! The computer guy said my hard drive was fine but the computer likely had a "Lotus virus". I have Norton Anti virus. He ran some malware searching programs and found some viruses. It is working fine now. Hope it stays that way. Thanks for the help.