Rarely, a disk corruption problem or virus can really make a file disappear. Make sure that you are really referring to the file by its correct name. I'm sorry if this sounds insulting to your intelligence, but a large percentage of problems I run into with files that seem to disappear turn out to simply be that the wrong drive letter was being used, or someone moved the file to another directory and forgot about it. If the file is on a removable media source, such as a floppy disk or Zip disk, make sure that the disk is still in the drive. Scan the system for viruses .
Some viruses play tricks with the directory structure or delete files when they are activated.
Scan the hard disk for file system corruption . File system problems can cause files to either be lost or to appear to be lost. This page has been served 3300 times. Copyright 1997-2001 Charles M. Kozierok . All Rights Reserved.