Windows – How to get back the lost data after refreshing Windows

windows 8windows-8-refresh

I refreshed my laptop, and now all my important pics have disappeared from a folder that used to be on the desktop.

How can I get them back?

Best Answer

There are a couple of ways that you could have refreshed Windows. How did you do it?

If during the recovery, you selected Refresh your PC without affecting your files, then your files should have been saved in C:\Windows.old
If you selected Remove everything and reinstall Windows, then your files were deleted. At best, you could try using data-recovery software to attempt to get at least some of them back (which may or may not work depending on numerous factors specific to your system and usage).

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Windows – Favorites disappeared in windows 8

Ordinarily, Restore favorite links should have worked; that's what it's there for. I just deleted the Links folder in Win7, then used that same option to regenerate them so Favorites was restored back to default.

At this point IMO you have two options:

Create a new temporary user profile (or use an existing separate profile) and copy a working Links folder over to your profile. Naturally, custom items you previously added will not be restored.
Since Links is just an ordinary folder with a hidden+system Dekstop.ini that's responsible for the magic, you could simply create a new folder by that name and copy over/recreate Dekstop.ini from a working instance of the folder (from a different profile on your or another PC). This is what it looks like on Win7, not sure if it's the same on WIn8 as I don't have access to it right now:
```
[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21810
[LocalizedFileNames]
RecentPlaces.lnk=@shell32.dll,-37217
Desktop.lnk=@shell32.dll,-21769
Downloads.lnk=@shell32.dll,-21798
```

After doing either of these Restore favorite links should work (if not, reboot and try again).

Windows – How to bring back Sleep option Windows 8

Go to Power Options in Control Panel, then click on the left side Require a password on wakeup. When you get to that screen, click Change settings that are currently unavailable. After you authenticate as an administrator, check the box titled Sleep under Shutdown settings and click Save changes and close the window.

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