SOLVED folders disappear and appear in temporary burn folder

[rtoledo2002]

I'm hoping I can get some ideas of how this is happening. I realize it could be one of my grand kids or other family members doing it accidentally.

I went looking for some folders and could not find them where they used to be, after a search in explorer I found them in the temporary burn folder ? .

Being curious I did a search for " temporary burn folder " and to my surprise i found a bunch of folders from this 2 terabyte hard drive now residing in this folder ONLY ?

I was able to move most back to a " hold" folder in the root of the drive, but it's driving me crazy . is this being done by accident? most of my family members say they do not use the explorer icon pinned at the bottom of the screen, but just to be safe I unpinned it so anyone wanting access to it has to go and look for it.

any suggestion are welcomed, looks like I may have to unplug one of the 2 extra 2 terabyte drives just to be safe.

seriously bewildered and thank you

 

[TrainableMan]

"Temporary Burn Folder" is NOT a standard Windows OS folder name.

I would suspect you have "clean-up" software that may have created such a directory and is moving "unused files". Personally I use CCleaner for registry cleaning and freeing up space because I know what it does & doesn't delete. If you right-click on the "Temporary Burn Folder" and select properties you can see when it was created, then look for programs installed on or just prior to that date.

The other possibility is some sort of malware; I would run a malware scan such as the Freeware version of Malwarebytes.

CCleaner and MalwareBytes links are available in our Freeware DB.

 

[TrainableMan]

No CCleaner isn't responsible, I was suggesting you replace whatever you were using with CCleaner.

As I mentioned, check the date on that folder and then look for a program installed around that time.

 

[davehc]

I do believe they would have been moved manually. It sounds like someone had, by design or accident, attempted to "burn" the contents to a DVD/CD.

But a small correction to the preceeding post,
The Temporary Burn Folder is a standard feature of Windows 7. It only shows up when you have files waiting to be written to the CD/DVD, and, sometimes, a disk is shoukld be inserted that is ready to accept data.

By default it is hidden. If you want to reveal it, Go to control panel (Icon View) -- Folder options -- View, and then click on "show hidden files..etc" . Click OK and close the Control Panel.
Double-click on Computer, or Open Windows Explorer, and look for this path: c:\Users\\Username\AppData\local\Microsoft\Windows\Burn\Temporary Burn Folder\

TrainableMan's comment re cleaner programs is very relevant. The folders you created (Those now lost) might well have been deleted by a cleaner program.

 

[rtoledo2002]

"Temporary Burn Folder" is NOT a standard Windows OS folder name.

I would suspect you have "clean-up" software that may have created such a directory and is moving "unused files". Personally I use CCleaner for registry cleaning and freeing up space because I know what it does & doesn't delete. If you right-click on the "Temporary Burn Folder" and select properties you can see when it was created, then look for programs installed on or just prior to that date.

The other possibility is some sort of malware; I would run a malware scan such as the Freeware version of Malwarebytes.

CCleaner and MalwareBytes links are available in our Freeware DB.

Wow I do have CCleaner installed for a few months but used it once only , I hope this program does not take "unused" apps and make them disappear. here's apicture of my D drive

 

[rtoledo2002]

I do believe they would have been moved manually. It sounds like someone had, by design or accident, attempted to "burn" the contents to a DVD/CD.

But I have to correct the earlier post,
The Temporary Burn Folder is a standard feature of Windows 7. It only shows up when you have files waiting to be written to the CD/DVD, and, sometimes, a disk is shoukld be inserted that is ready to accept data.

By default it is hidden. If you want to reveal it, Go to control panel (Icon View) -- Folder options -- View, and then click on "show hidden files..etc" . Click OK and close the Control Panel.
Double-click on Computer, or Open Windows Explorer, and look for this path: c:\Users\\Username\AppData\local\Microsoft\Windows\Burn\Temporary Burn Folder\

this is what I was thinking, since I let my grand kids use this (my) computer, as for my wife she has no clue and she never uses anything but the browser(not a put down).

still I am going to unpin the explorer so someone has to go out of their way.
the only thing that hurts is the photo directory, some things in there came out of our phones and not available the rest in these drives in DVD's or just not worth it. I guess it's time to pick up a blue ray burner to do back ups to. I know better than to let this happen to me one more time, but I'm burned out on burning cds / dvds (no pun).

my grand kids accout " kids" is not a administrator account but who knows what one of them (wild like I was once does) he install everything he can get his hands on from the net (5 years old) . I do run ESET and it's set to "kill on contact", but I digress.

thank you both, at this point I have no conclusive proof how this happened or how to prevent it

EDIT: I have my folder option to show all hidden and os items, and do not have the TBF on the c: drive, this leaves me thinking that this may have been from a previous installation when I had the trial version of W7 on this machine. when I bought my 5 copies of W7 I re-installed them fresh on the C: drives leaving these temp folder on the secondary and tertiary drives ?

what do you guys think? since I do not use the computers that much anymore maybe this happened a while back and never caught it till now (just not sure on timeline) cause this has me freaked out about the old photos

 

[rtoledo2002]

No CCleaner isn't responsible, I was suggesting you replace whatever you were using with CCleaner.

As I mentioned, check the date on that folder and then look for a program installed around that time.

sorry misunderstood you

 

[davehc]

Just a small point. I have just looked at your attachment. How is it that the temp burn folder is in D:?
It must have been manually moved??
I ask, as it could be the reason for the original problem.

 

[TrainableMan]

Thanks Dave, I use other tools to Burn DVDs so I've never seen a folder like that, I was thinking it was sort of a recycle bin for some program.

The OP mentioned (in a post he has since deleted) that the folders are not on his OS C: drive, they are only found on his two other drives. Normally I would figure anything going to a directory to be burned to DVD would be a copy rather than a moved original but I suppose it depends how the OP is creating his Burn DVDs.

A quick search shows DVDs can be burned with Media Center, Windows DVD Maker, or with Windows Media Player or Windows Explorer. So if you are burning DVDs you might want to watch the little tutorial in the link to be sure you are COPYING the files rather than moving them.

rToledo, the creation date of the folder should tell you how long they have been around.

 

[davehc]

"The OP mentioned (in a post he has since deleted) that the folders are not on his OS C: drive, they are only found on his two other drives. "

OK. Tks TM. That probably explains it. They must have been manually moved.

 

[TrainableMan]

TrainableMan's comment re cleaner programs is very relevant. The folders you created (Those now lost) might well have been deleted by a cleaner program.

Dave, unless I misunderstood his post, he didn't actually loose any files. When he found them missing a search discovered them in that "Temporary Burn Folder" on his D: drive and he just wanted to know how/why his photos got moved there. Having never seen or heard of that folder before I gave my suspicions but since reading your posts I suspect you are right on the money and that whoever was creating a DVD of them, accidentally moved them rather than copied them to the Burn Folder.

So I no longer believe any cleaner program was involved.

Now rToledo something Dave mentioned is possible, though I do not believe it has happened in your case since I understand you did find the files, that if you move important files/folder to what are considered temporary folders then cleanup programs may very well delete them when they are run. It is always a good idea to maintain regularly scheduled data back-ups in case of accidental file deletion of harddrive failure.

 

[davehc]

"and to my surprise i found a bunch of folders from this 2 terabyte hard drive now residing in this folder ONLY ?"

My reading of that remark was that he had lost his original folders. But you could be right.

"It is always a good idea to maintain regularly scheduled data back-ups in case of accidental file deletion of harddrive failure. "
That comment should be written on the front of every package produced by MS.But add "accidental occurence of virus's etc., and bad customisation"
It would cut down the posts on forums such as this by 50%