What the heck happened to all the pictures I downloaded from my digital camera to my hardrive? The most reent ones are there, in folders where I put them, but when I click to open some of the older folders, all the freakin' pics have disappeared!

Wanna guess how happy the wife will be when I have to explain this one? Why are some gone and some remain, and is there any way to recover them? A liitle help here would be greatly appreciated!

Did you verify that the pictures were actually in the folder after you initially downloaded them?

I assume you have not deleted anything from these folders recently?

Have you checked your recycle bin?  If you deleted them they could still be there?

Are they still on your camera's memory card?  They could be re-downloaded.

Could they be in a differnt part of your file system?  How long ago did you download them?  Do you know the specific day?  If so, do an advanced search for all files created on that date.  Might take several minutes to run.

Quoted: Are they still on your camera's memory card?  They could be re-downloaded.

Also, if they have been deleted, you can still go back and recover them if you have not taken pictures on the card yet. The data is still there then, you just have to find it.

ETA:

What is the default file name for all of your pics that you download?

Example: All of my pics say: IMG_#### with the "#" with the picture number. Find that and put (example) "IMG" into a filename search.

Quoted: What the heck happened to all the pictures I downloaded from my digital camera to my hardrive? The most reent ones are there, in folders where I put them, but when I click to open some of the older folders, all the freakin' pics have disappeared! Wanna guess how happy the wife will be when I have to explain this one? Why are some gone and some remain, and is there any way to recover them? A liitle help here would be greatly appreciated!

Has your computer been infected with any viruses recently?

If not, go to the "Start" button and go to "Search". Then select "Search for files or Folders" and type in *.jpg

What this does is search for all files that are jpegs. If your photos are still on the computer and haven't been erased, this will turn them up.

Save them to a disk if you find them.

They are probably in the default "My Pictures" folder, and not in the folder that your other pictures are in.  Check My Documents---->My Pictures.

what software are you viewing the images in?

looking for the images in that software's catalog
may help you figure out where the originals are stored

bump - update?

Let me guess, you're using a Microsoft operating system?

Sorry, mate, had to bring that up.  I lost a shitload of stuff due to Win98 crashing repeatedly and wiping out files every time.  Then I found out it had corrupted half the stuff on the drive.

This is one reason I primarily use Knoppix nowadays.  Along with security, ease of use, and too many other benefits to mention.

Quoted: Let me guess, you're using a Microsoft operating system? Sorry, mate, had to bring that up.  I lost a shitload of stuff due to Win98 crashing repeatedly and wiping out files every time.  Then I found out it had corrupted half the stuff on the drive. This is one reason I primarily use Knoppix nowadays.  Along with security, ease of use, and too many other benefits to mention.

You use a CD OS? Why not Solaris or another free Linux OS for the HD?

BTW, I know that Solaris is Unix.

Quoted: Quoted: What the heck happened to all the pictures I downloaded from my digital camera to my hardrive? The most reent ones are there, in folders where I put them, but when I click to open some of the older folders, all the freakin' pics have disappeared! Wanna guess how happy the wife will be when I have to explain this one? Why are some gone and some remain, and is there any way to recover them? A liitle help here would be greatly appreciated! Has your computer been infected with any viruses recently? If not, go to the "Start" button and go to "Search". Then select "Search for files or Folders" and type in *.jpg What this does is search for all files that are jpegs. If your photos are still on the computer and haven't been erased, this will turn them up.

Yes to a virus (in the past 90 days), and I then searched using *.jpg and also *IMG. Nothing but a load of my teenage daughter's pics of Wally Sczerbiak.  

I also checked the default "My Pictures" file...nada! The folders marked "Family," or "Summer Vacation" are there, but there are no pictures in the folders. Looks like I've lost one whole heckuva lot of memories.

And BTW, I'm using Windows XP Home Edition.

I sure appreciate all the replies, but this isn't looking too good, is it?

Quoted: Quoted: Let me guess, you're using a Microsoft operating system? Sorry, mate, had to bring that up.  I lost a shitload of stuff due to Win98 crashing repeatedly and wiping out files every time.  Then I found out it had corrupted half the stuff on the drive. This is one reason I primarily use Knoppix nowadays.  Along with security, ease of use, and too many other benefits to mention. You use a CD OS? Why not Solaris or another free Linux OS for the HD? BTW, I know that Solaris is Unix.

You can do a HD install of Knoppix, it's what I have running on my laptop. Its foolproof, fast, and honestly, just works with about everything I throw at it.

As to the OP's problem, theres quite a number of things that it could be. I'm assuming that the .jpg search didn't turn up anything? If not, try having windoze run a CHKDSK on the next startup, I've recovered files that way before. If that doesn't work, try a file recovery program.

Once you DO recover the files, back them up. Multiple times, I can't stress that enough. CDs are cheap, photos are not replacable.

-Storm

To find lost/deleted files on customers computers I have used a program called Winhex.
It worked well for me
http://www.x-ways.net/winhex/index-m.html

Geegee, have you tried using an undelete utility to scan the drive for deleted files?  If you haven't written a lot of  stuff to disk since the last time you know they were there, you might be able to recover some of them that way.

Also, DVD burners are only about $60 now for a 16X burner;  they have rewritable dual layer DVD-RW media out now that will hold 9GB at a shot for about $4 per disk, reusable about 100 times.  +RW media (haven't seen any dual layer yet) is about $1 for 4.5GB, and I've read that it has the ability to be randomly accessed and rewritten in sections.

Quoted: Quoted: Let me guess, you're using a Microsoft operating system? Sorry, mate, had to bring that up.  I lost a shitload of stuff due to Win98 crashing repeatedly and wiping out files every time.  Then I found out it had corrupted half the stuff on the drive. This is one reason I primarily use Knoppix nowadays.  Along with security, ease of use, and too many other benefits to mention. You use a CD OS? Why not Solaris or another free Linux OS for the HD?

[tangent]Because sometimes I have to use MS-Word or other Windows-based software for work.  I usually can't choose the file format;  a client or my boss sends me something and I just have to use whatever works on it.

Also, if I am running off CD, then if something/someone does manage to invade, any damage will evaporate when I reboot.  I can save files to HD or a USB key whenever I want, anyway.

As The_Stormrider wrote, I also have Knoppix installed on a HD, but in my case it's not the drive that's usually plugged into the machine.  It's actually the best Linux installation I've seen;  it configured perfectly the first time.
[/tangent]

- Most people's Internet-connected Windows computers are completely OWNED by spyware and viruses, and the sad part is that the users clicked an "OK" button that allowed it to happen.

Our company has an autoupdater, which notifies us when new stuff should be downloaded.  A coworker thought a little popup was the company autoupdater, and clicked OK to download some stuff.  He got the Cool Wave Search trojan (aka "about: blank" virus).  It reset his homepage to a porno site, and invited in a gazillion spywares.  He was looking at a farm tractor site when it happened.