Alan_B

36,000 separate image files ? What extension and purpose ? e.g. Partition image backup (typically much larger than 1 GB each), or photographs

The best idea is to start a topic in the Bug Report forum http://forum.piriform.com/index.php?showforum=8

Christmas may come early for you if you try this :- http://www.downloadm....com/index.html

My experience of CCleaner is that when it runs it needs browsers to be closed, in which case downloads would not be active, so on the face of it I seen no need to prohibit deletion.

I gave up DuckDuckGo because it does NOT tell me how many results match my query. If I search for something and the relevant result is not on the first page, I look at how many results matched and base my actions accordingly. I search for "egg" and StartPage responds with "About 33,199,250 results (0.15 seconds)" It feels like half a second before DuckDuckGo gives me results. The essential piece of information is that what I want is buried amongst 33,199,249 possibly irrelevant results, and based on that I more tightly specify with "Christmas egg" and get "About 8,460 results (0.15 seconds)" Conversely I may get a total of 30 results in which case I double check my spelling and then consider whether I am being to particular, and whether to widen the coverage of my search phrase before I scan all the results.

A professional data recovery expert might know how to reconstruct pointer tables, but he would charge more than it costs for you to get a spare 3 TB drive which would avoid all the complications.

@Dennis You are right. I observe that your site is exactly the same as mine, but with a different "symptom fix". Whilst inspecting and comparing I formed a new opinion. It is scamware that extracts money from the gullible. I base this opinion on their "Customer Feedback which includes I deduce that he had to pay to get their product to fix his computer, but nowhere on that page does it show that payment is required, and when I click on the Download button it instantly provides a setup.exe file (which I cancelled without saving), so I guess it tells the customer he has too many problems for a free fix but full fixing will follow payment of $???

I use the PaleMoon Browser and have several Search Engines available including Google ; DuckDuckGo ; Bing ; and "Startpage HTTPS" This gives information on Startpage, which is my preferred engine. https://www.startpag...age-plugin.html The "Top Result" which I quoted less than one hour ago is no longer present. Perhaps a Piriform Lawyer has already issued a cease and desist order (and issued an invoice for services rendered). I would say that if someone was advised to clean a computer with a Piriform product they might well kill it with a registry cleaner of unknown quality, but I am not aware of any deliberate attempt at infestation (I never risked it) It does how ever appear to be guilty of libel with "Piriform.com may caused by some of the following errors" You can get to the site with http://www.fixpchelp...&gid=1018589375 http://www.fixpchelper.com/?k=Piriform.Com&tid=A1972&gid=1018589375

The Search engine "Start Page" has a new "Top Result" for the "Piriform forum" It looks like this The destination is a registry cleaner at ---you dont want to go there---http://www.fixpchelper.com/?k=Piriform.Com&tid=A1972&gid=1018589375lper.com/ It holds the statement

Please note that you should make backup copies of anything you value on this partition. All its contents may be lost. Perhaps it is unwriteable because :- Windows was told to Write protect it, in which case there may be a way to undo that - I cannot remember how but Google may. Minitool will allow you to delete the partition - Windows permitting. Bootable Minitool will delete the partition regardless of Windows.

I have had no particular experience of using (or needing) Recuva, and will leave it for others to advise you.

Also from the same site you can get free downloads for Linux Bootable CD and Flash Drives, which will let you go where no Windows Application is allowed to go. It is quite possible that it is Windows Operating System that is not only refusing to move files to D:\ but is also blocking your Express tool. http://www.partition...ootable-cd.html http://www.partition...lash-drive.html Years ago a Windows Whoopsie lost every one of 7 partitions on my XP Home Laptop. Total Disaster non-bootable. I did not panic, I had an Acronis (or Macrium) Partition Boot recovery CD and its Partition Image Backup files on on external drive. Before I used my "safety belt" I decided to use my Partition Wizard "safety braces" (when I was a child men would wear both as a precaution). All partitions were recovered by the version 4.2 Partition Wizard Bootable CD, and when Windows then failed to boot I ran the CD again and used its "Repair MBR Wizard", and then Windows Booted up O.K. The first thing Windows said after booting and I had logged on was that a FAT32 partition was corrupt and advised running Chkdsk. After invoking Chkdsk and rebooting all seemed well. MiniTool Partition Wizard products are now up to version 7.6, and I am sure that in the future whatever Windows Whoopsie might hit the Fan my Bootable Flash will sort it out. Your sig is a nice bright RED that hits my eyeballs, I am afraid that I failed to notice the fainter rendering of Eli's grey sig.

Have you tried rebooting the computer ? What version of Windows ?

All your lost file are in the "Free Space", and for every 1 MB that you recover you may well corrupt to uselessness 2 GB that has not and thereafter can never be recovered. Hence recover to the same partition is most inappropriate.

Possibly relevant to this topic is this article about the danger of your router WIFI password being hacked https://windowssecre...ty-to-the-test/ Super Fast - is there any possibility you have been hacked and your password cracked, and now you are blocked from information on default passwords for the same reason that Conficker blocked Antivirus scanning sites from its victims I love a good Conspiracy Theory

My favourite hobby and skill is beating my computer into submission. I am still developing skill for dealing with people and the wife

There are many sites that provide Defraggler look-a-likes and possible bundle in other stuff. The only recommended alternative to Piriform.com is FileHippo.com.

I received a notification of Hazel's post with two links. The first link took me to the Desktops topic that concluded with "I am NOT going to post my (adult) (december) desktop" and then I clicked on the second link that took me to the above image on the Imgur site. Sorry, but I could not resist a smile at the adult thought of a neck clamp with an Ethernet cable used as handcuffs

System Restore will have perfectly eliminated any damage you did to the registry with CCleaner But this is ASSUMING you restored to a point that preceded your cleaning of the registry. System Restore also promises to restore all "System Files" which ought to include all drivers and your sound system, unfortunately my experience with XP Home was that it never made good on its promises for all "System Files". Please note that from what I remember of using XP two years ago a Restore Point is NOT a single POINT but a "BLOB" which is compiled over a period of time. It consists of a Registry Hives Snapshot that is taken at the instant the new Restore Point is created, and then over a period of time it captures changes to so called "System Files". Long story Short :- If your system was damaged on Wednesday then perhaps you need to restore to Tuesday to repair the registry, BUT that Restore Point will include "System File" changes that occurred between the start on Tuesday and whenever the Thursday Restore Point took over. ( I know that officially a new Restore Point is created at 1 day intervals but that was not my normal experience ) Just possibly you need to restore to the Restore Point that precedes the one preceding calamity. System Restore was NEVER able to decide whether my Firefox Cache was a system file or a user document, so when I did a System Restore it would leave in Firefox profile both a "cache" and a "cache(2)". I love the absolute certainty that I have gained now that I use Image Backups, which capture the precise state in one instant of time of all registry hives and system files and all my Applications and User Documents.

I am pleased you fixed your problem. I am slightly disappointed my script was not needed, BUT relieved that I did not have to embark on the tedious process of :- analysing a very long CC-INFO.TXT to determine what WinApp2.ini entries corresponded to your installation ; determining where the disruption occurred ; and then entering a long series of trial and error tests. A new Windows 7 installation and everyone wins

You said Perhaps that is no longer true due to a Windows Update or some other external influence/malware. I have a miniscule 3.6 MB in my System Volume Information because I too have Restore Points Disabled. I have to use the Portable Treesize Free to show how my space is Disk space used. That shows me not only the size of System Volume Information, it also shows me the names of the files it contains and the largest file is syscache.hve Defraggle "Search" does NOT find folder names, but I can search for syscache.hve and when I select that file a single cell is highlighted, and when I click on that cell it highlights only one cell.in the drive map. When I click on that cell then a "Highted" TAB opens and I see this file is accompanied by perhaps 1000 other files in this same cell You appear to have a large number of cells occupied by System Volume Information. This suggests that the folder is in use now even though it was not previously in use. Restore Points are one possibility. I believe VSS Snapshots are another possibility. I suggest you download Treesize Free and check whether there is new stuff being placed in System Volume Information. http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml N.B. I keep 372 GB of backup files in a total space of 466 GB on E:\ It is 56% fragmented and its health is GOOD. Even at 100% fragmented I would not worry so long as Health was GOOD. I never bother to defrag it because it is far less of a time waste if I tolerate an extra tenth of a second when occasionally reading a backup file Your 62% fragmentation does NOT indicate that you should expect disc failure. 62% fragmentation might marginally slow your computer, BUT NOT if it is the contents of System Volume Information - that is almost always write-only. If you need further advice you should specify what version of Windows and Service Packs, and also 64 or 32 bit,

This is as near as it gets http://forum.pirifor...showtopic=37021 You should have seen it about one inch below the "Start new Topic" button.

Version 2.12 has a NON-cosmetic defect. With version 2.11 I can Analyse partition E:\ and distinguish the Pagefile.sys by its special colour. I can then select the "Drive Map" Tab and observe coloured squares with legends such as "Not Fragmented" and "Page File" When I click on the legend "Page File" I observe that ONLY the "Page File" cells in the mid-centre map retain their colours, and all the other cells are greyed out. When I click on the extreme left "Page File" cell a Highlighted TAB appears and displays :- a 6 GB backup file in 12 fragments, and a 8 GB Page File in 1 Fragment. This particular cell overlaps a boundary. On the right of this particular cell are 70 more beige cells and each is designated as part of the 8 GB Page File in 1 fragment. When I Select the "Drive Map" and click on any one of the 6 legends from "Empty" through to "Reserved MFT" then the corresponding cells retain their colours and all others, including the "Page File" cells, are greyed out. With version 2.12 the main differences I observe are :- 1. The "Page File" now is not one beige colour as per the legend, but the extreme left boundary overlap cell is coloured "Fragmented (Low Occupancy)" ; the extreme right cell is "Not Fragmented (Low Occupancy)" ; and all cells between are "Not Fragmented" ; 2. When I click on the Legend "Page File" then NOTHING is greyed out. Version 2.11 knows the difference between "Page File" and all other cells, and refrains from attempting to defrag Page File unless in Boot Defrag mode. Version 2.12 does NOT know the difference between "Page File" and anything else when showing the Analyze Map, and FAILS to grey out any cell with the legend "Page File" is clicked. I suspect that version 2.12 may also fail to recognize "Page File" as a suitable target during Boot Defrag, and might attempt to defrag "Page File" when running under Windows (not that Windows would allow it.) I doubt that this "feature" will cause any damage, but it might waste time trying to move the immovable.

We only know that there is an incompatibility somewhere in the combination of :- a specific computer ; its operating system ; its installed applications ; CCleaner ; and WinApp2.ini . After watching the video it is my guess that a particular set of installed applications causes a particular set of file and/or registry detects which cause CCleaner to activate a monstrous set of application check-boxes without any names. Perhaps many names are missing because of a problem with Windows fonts. Perhaps there is a RAM defect which causes CCleaner to go into a recursive loop when it uses a critical amount of memory. There is a possibility of a defect in WinApp2.ini, BUT I would have expected this to have been evident to whoever submitted that defective entry. To me it seems better to have one more topic amongst the many thousands which gracefully expire out of sight upon completion, rather than mixing up posts with diagnostics and error reports along with the prime purpose of collating user submission in a pinned topic that never expires, I find it easier to deal with a specific problem in a specific topic so that all the information is close together when I need to refresh my memory, but would be happy for the topic to be moved into this WinApp2.ini Additions topic when the problem has been resolved.

I am now satisfied by your reply that you were not specifying an incorrect parameter and thus causing this error "the parameter is incorrect". I am not able to help you further, but I am sure experts will arrive shortly. Alan