SERIOUS BUG CORRUPTED MY FILES!

[drewan]

SERIOUS BUG CORRUPTED FILES THAT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN TOUCHED!

 

Windows 7, 64-bit. 4GB ram, Core I5.

CCleaner v2.36.1233

 

 

What I did:

 

1. I stuck a cd in the drive and selected a folder on my computer that had many things in it, including sub-folders, to "burn to the cd using windows explorer". I dragged it into the to-burn window that windows brought up. The folder I selected had many photos in it, also some word docs and excel files, some movies, some txt files, some adobe pdf files. The very many photos all had thumnail pics showing what they were, and the files worked. I could open them.

 

2. It ended up being too much to fit on the cd when I checked the size total, so I canceled the attempt for then.

 

3. After that, Windows kept telling me there were files waiting to be burned. It had copied the files into some temporary place, and in the window, it said they were waiting to be burned. I deleted them from waiting to be burned, since I was not going to do that now until I could get a dvd.

 

4. Soon after that I used ccleaner. It said recycling bin had stuff in it, including the temporary files that had been waiting for burning. Part of the directory I remember ccleaner showing from the recycling bin was "...burn/burn/all shore" ("all shore" being the main folder with all the other stuff in it. The original "all shore" was and is still on the desktop, and so clearly was not the location ccleaner was to touch). It was taking a long time, and I realized it was set for 35 passes, so I canceled and reset it lower, then ran it again. It almost finished, when I had to leave, so I canceled for then.

 

5. I came back and I went into the all shore folder on the desktop to check something. I found the files all corrupted!!!! Only the last few it had not finished wiping from the totally other location could be opened. All the thumbnail preview images were gone, and I tried various picture programs to open the files, and they cannot open them, say they are corrupted or too big. The word docs, excel files, txt., open to blank content. Adobe can't open its file there, either. The movies also are corrupted.

 

6. I finished running the ccleaner, and that wiped out the few remaining files I had been able to access. Those were not the important ones anyway, and I was hoping that maybe if the process finished, if ccleaner was somehow holding onto them all somehow so they could not open, then it might let go and then they would all work. Obviously, that isn't what happened: They are all corrupted, even after restarting the computer. This proved that CCleaner clearly was the cause of the destruction!

 

THIS MUST BE A SERIOUS BUG THAT SHOULD NOT HAPPEN!

 

The original files still show as being there, but they are all corrupted or wiped somehow so nothing shows! Windows shows what seem to be the orginal byte sizes on the files, as the sizes have not become zero and seem reasonably sized.

 

There is no reason CCleaner should have touched these original files!!!! I even saw the paths it was showing and they were not to that location! And the files are there, corrupted, not deleted.

 

Is there any way to undo what ccleaner has done to this big archive I was planning on backing up so as not to lose? Please tell me how to restore them! They were not in any path ccleaner was told by me to touch, but it somehow ruined them anyway!

 

Please respond, thank you! These are important files with a lot of important info on them!

[hazelnut]

I understand how upset you must be feeling having lost so much stuff. I think we must not totally rule out the fact that Windows is partly to blame as it seems it must have still held them in the temp file area after you cancelled the burn which couldn't be done. Regardless of how or why this happened (and this is the first time I have heard of anything like this happening which could have involved ccleaner) let us try and first look at the possibilities of getting your files back.

 

The obvious way is an image restore. Do you have one? Windows 7 as you know offers an excellent free file and image backup area.

 

If not did you have any other kind of backups of any of your files?

 

Have you tried Recuva?

 

http://www.piriform.com/recuva

[Alan_B]

3. After that, Windows kept telling me there were files waiting to be burned. It had copied the files into some temporary place, and in the window, it said they were waiting to be burned. I deleted them from waiting to be burned, since I was not going to do that now until I could get a dvd.

 

Are you sure they were copies and not a redirected view of the originals via a reparse point / Junction / Symlink.

 

If you access a via a Junction the file is protected from deletion - BUT A SECURE OVERWRITE WILL DESTROY IT.

 

This is a brief abstract where I gave full details of how WFS will destroy what cannot be deleted.

OOPS - SORRY, NOT "WFS" BUT "SECURE OVERWRITE DELETION" - I get confused between two very dangerous things that I will never do.

I posted it on 3rd September and there has been no refutation :-

 

Windows 7 Ultimate, and also presumable Vista, has BLACK HOLES where data disappears over the Event Horizon.

 

Just as in Sci-Fi, behind every blackhole is a wormhole leading to another universe/dimension etc.,

so Windows 7 etc has blackholes which are called Junctions or Reparse Points that lead to somewhere else.

 

Some of these reparse points are bidirectional - what you deposit you can retrieve.

Others are write (exit) only, and you have to look somewhere else to find them.

 

Write only holes allow you to write, but prevent you from reading or even deleting.

If you can write then you can OVER-WRITE which destroys what was there,

so SECURE deletion will overwrite and destroy what a simple delete cannot harm.

 

I hoped you could click on the link, but preview shows it fails.

Another attempt at a link:-

http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showtopic=29618&st=0&p=177053&fromsearch=1entry177053

failing which you will find the topic at "CCleaner Discussion" forum by Coinshooter

last post dated 03 September 2010 - 01:34 PM

 

Alan

[drewan]

Thank you for replying.

 

I have most of the stuff on a flash drive, just not all of it, like the most recent things. Recuva says it is for deleted files. These files were never deleted. They are right there. They were never put into recycling bin either to begin with. They are there but corrupted.

 

"a redirected view of the originals ... reparse point / Junction / Symlink" = Sounds possible and certainly nothing I should have known to think about. I never deleted these folders/files. They were right there on the desktop and still are. Then ccleaner damaged them when it never should have touched them. Even if this is a bug in windows, CCleaner must make sure it does not do this and should also report this to Microsoft and tell microsoft they must fix this bug in their OS.

 

If this is an issue with such a known bug, CCleaner should have been programmed to not do such a thing. The end result was that using CCleaner destroyed things it had no right to touch, and that means it cannot be trusted to run on my system! This bug needs to be fixed.

[hazelnut]

I mentioned Recuva because you said in item 4 of your first post that you seen the recycle bin 'in use', and that you had deleted the tmp files. Worth a shot.

 

It is good that you had made backups of most of your files.

 

Also it isn't really necessary to do 35 passes just 1 would suffice. It is unfortunate that you canceled things before they finished, the burn, the ccleaner run etc.

 

At the very beginning you said you dragged the folder to be burnt to cd but the burn was never done so I wonder if in some way the file that was dragged never actually returned to its normal state. I always think copy+paste is a safer option but that is not the point now.

 

Are the file associations okay?

[Alan_B]

At the very beginning you said you dragged the folder to be burnt to cd but the burn was never done so I wonder if in some way the file that was dragged never actually returned to its normal state. I always think copy+paste is a safer option but that is not the point now.

 

My experience with XP, and I think with all versions of Windows that include Windows Explorer,

is that simply selecting a file or folder and drag dropping it to another location

(without use of Ctrl / Alt / Shift keys etc.)

WILL instantly remove it from the original location if the new location is in the same partition;

no data is copied - just a shuffle in the directory and it is all over in a flash.

If you are dropping onto a different partition the original stays in place,

and all the contents are duplicated to the other partition, which can take an awfully long time.

 

If you simply drag and hover over a different partition you can see a '+' by the mouse pointer before you drop,

whilst if you hover over the same partition there is no '+'.

You do not need to drop onto the new location to see this effect.

 

If Junctions are involved that could be yet another can of worms which never ended well for me ! !

 

Alan

[drewan]

File associations are fine for them (like a word doc is called a word doc and word is what opens it, even though no content shows, just empty pages, despite the kb size of the file).

 

Well I thought I dragged it but it never got rid of where it was. I know there are times when a drag is a move but also times when it is a copy, and it didn't move, it took some time indeed seemingly copying to make temporary files to burn, and a path was given for them, not the original path on the desktop. Somehow there was still some kind of connection that caused ccleaner to corrupt the original files after the temporary to-burn files were deleted, and that should not have happened. Also, I have not made other partitions, so I don't think that is involved.

 

I don't see any response from CCleaner people that they will fix this bug or anything, so I will leave it at this and limit my use and recommendation of the program.

 

Okay, thank you to those who responded.

[hazelnut]

I don't actually think this can be called a reproducible bug. I think it was more like a unusual chain of events. It well could have been Windows which caused a corruption of the files itself due to the canceling first of the burn, and then choosing and canceling 35 passes, and then ccleaner could only act on temp files after being told by your machine (in same strange way) that that was what they were.

 

I'm just glad you had made backups of most of them.

[Super Fast]

Thank you for replying.

 

I have most of the stuff on a flash drive, just not all of it, like the most recent things. Recuva says it is for deleted files. These files were never deleted. They are right there. They were never put into recycling bin either to begin with. They are there but corrupted.

 

"a redirected view of the originals ... reparse point / Junction / Symlink" = Sounds possible and certainly nothing I should have known to think about. I never deleted these folders/files. They were right there on the desktop and still are. Then ccleaner damaged them when it never should have touched them. Even if this is a bug in windows, CCleaner must make sure it does not do this and should also report this to Microsoft and tell microsoft they must fix this bug in their OS.

 

If this is an issue with such a known bug, CCleaner should have been programmed to not do such a thing. The end result was that using CCleaner destroyed things it had no right to touch, and that means it cannot be trusted to run on my system! This bug needs to be fixed.

I suspect this problem does not exist in XP.

 

I would say that there are a few things you can try, take your pick!

 

Get an external drive & copy over all the files you are concerned with.

Also make a full system backup using the system backup utility.

After the backups are complete, safely eject the external drive & then shift + delete the files you are trying to "recover".

Try to recover them now, since now, they really ARE deleted, thus satisfying the requirements for Recuva!

 

You can also try the following alternatives:

Use another OS like XP to check & be sure the OS doesn't have corruption causing it not to properly open. See if they open under XP

 

Of course, you can try a system restore too, to see if that will work. Restore back to a prior date.

Also, TestDisk utility may be used to try to recover data. Some report success with it.

 

Whatever you do, be sure all your data is BACKED up first!

[hazelnut]

Super Fast please look at the date of the posts before replying with ideas.

 

This thread is out of date now and the original poster will have dealt with the situation.