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Jeff Nicoll

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Restoring a system after a Windows 10 update failure.

I am running a DELL XPS 27 (2720) PC with Windows 10 Pro, an i7-4770S CPU @ 3.10 GHz, 16 GB RAM, 2 TB storage, 64-bit OS, x64-based processor.

During a recent Windows 10 update (I've been using Windows 10 for just under a year) something was corrupted and the system failed to reboot.

In the hope of recovering as much of my data as possible I extracted the HDD, used a STATA to USB adapter, and found 2 folders on the HDD:

     Name                                          Date modified       Type             Size
     20161214121005_BACKUP     12/14/2016            File folder     276   GB
     Documents and Settings         12/14/2016           File folder       22.8 GB

The "20161214121005_BACKUP" folder contains a Temp folder, MIGRATION_STATUS file, INP files, and XML documents.

The "Documents and Settings" folder contains these folders: All Users, Default, Default.migrated, Jeff, Public.

I'm asking if anyone knows how these files were created and if it's possible to recover my system data from them.

Thanks for any help.

Jeff Nicoll
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rindi
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There is no "Documents and Settings" folder since Vista. "Documents and Settings" was last used with XP/2003 Server.

The real folder name should be "Users", and within that are your user profiles, like Admin, UserNames..., and Public (meant for data that is accessible to all Users). Within those folders you have folders called Documents, Pictures, Videos, Downloads, and that is normally where any user data is stored.

The "Backup" folder to me is questionable. You don't backup to the same disk you work on. You rather do that to some external media.

Anyway, why do you need to go through all this? Just reinstall Windows 10, run all the updates, then restore your data from your regular backups.
I'd copy the Documents and User's folder across to another computer and examine it.  You may find your files from December there.

I'm guessing (Note the term guessing) that this is the result of a December patch that was released about this time by Microsoft.  Now as to why the disk has ended up like this I don't know.  Remember I'm guessing.

See https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsofts-december-2016-patch-tuesday-comes-with-12-security-updates/

Note you may need to be in Administrator mode to view the folder's contents and you may need to take possession of the folder.
And what created that 20161214121005_BACKUP folder?  It is not a normal one and 276 GB's is huge!
What happened with the update?
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Jeff Nicoll

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Thank you for your replies.
rindi:     All I can say is there is a folder named "Documents and Settings".
                    This folder has 5 sub-folders:
                         All Users                  Most sub-folders are empty.  A few seem to have generic files with dates of 2014.
                         Default                     Most sub-folders are empty.  A few seem to have files with dates of Jul 2016.
                         Default.migrated    All sub-folders are empty.
                         Jeff                            Most sub-folders are empty.  A few seem to have files with dates of 2016.
                         Public                       Most sub-folders are empty.  A few seem to have generic files with dates of Dec 2016.

              As for the "20161214121005_BACKUP" folder, since there is only one HDD on my systems whomever wrote this file
              didn't have any choice.  I didn't write this folder but I'm hoping it might allow recovery of some files generated since my last
              backup
, which was admittedly too long ago.

dbruntom:     While the "Documents and Settings" folder has multiple levels of sub-folders, none of them have any useful files.
                         There are a few files but they appear to be generic files.  

All of my current problems started when I received notification of a required (no choice) Windows 10 update.  I selected the option to just do it now and get it over with.  The system started the update process but was never able to successfully reboot after that.  Microsoft told me there was nothing they could do but if I wanted to take my system into a Microsoft office, they would take a look at it.  The nearest office is a 5.5 hour drive so I'm looking for alternative solutions.                

Thanks again for you comments.
Davis:   I don't know what created the "_BACKUP" folder.  The size of the file roughly matches the amount of disk space in use on my hard drive (these is only one 2 TB drive).  This plus the file consisting of .INP and .XLM files lead me to hope I might be able to identify what program wrote the file and therefore perhaps find a way to restore the data.  This is all basically the wishful thinking of someone who didn't backup their files often enough.  I have now install an Acronis backup system doing nightly incremental backups - a case of closing the barn door after the horse is gone.

Thanks for taking the time to think about my issue.

Jeff
Documents and settings must just be a Junction point (similar to a shortcut) which points to the actual Users folder. It isn't a real folder. What OS is the PC running from which you are reading that disk? Also, there might be several partitions, and you are looking at the wrong one?

Recovering data from the Backup folder depends on the tool used to make the backup in the first place.
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dbrunton
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On second thoughts I wouldn't go the Dell technician way.

It seems you've got access to another computer and can access the drive that way.

In which case get GetDataBack  https://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm  Get the free version and run it over your attached disk.  See what it finds.  If it can see your files then pay for the full version and recover as much as you can to the computer.  Then back up what you recover to another disk.

Then decide if you want Dell to look at your disk because I believe it is one of their Backup products that created those two folders.
On that drive, there should be a folder named Users\<your-user-name> and in it is where you stuff should be.  Pictures, Documents, Downloads, and Desktop are typical folders to copy or backup.
What email program was it?
Thanks for all the help.  The _BACKUP file was a DELL file and the utility pointed to by the post retrieved all my data.  When I copied the "Documents and Setting" file to the hard drive it was expanded and all the appropriate files were stored in their correct locations.

I would have been lost without the help on this forum.  As it is, I have access to all my data.  I'm still working on other issues with my machine caused by the Windows 10 update but I'm slowing getting things resolved.

Thanks again for all the help!