Folder full of files named "V"

[techno_race]

I have a folder on a thumb drive that, 15 minutes ago, contained several Word (.DOC and .DOCX) documents, as well as some text files (.TXT) and a subfolder containing images (.JPG, .PNG, and .GIF). I opened one of the .DOCs on Computer A and then Computer B, both of which ran Word 2007 and Windows XP SP3. But when I tried to open them on Computer A again, they were gone. They weren't gone, actually, but the folder was full of nothing but 256 files, each 5,505 KB, all called "V" . That's it. V. U+0056. No extension, no nothing. Just "V". I've seen cases where Word will freak out and replace a file with a hidden file called WRDxxxx.tmp. But I have never seen a directory full of Vs. Do you have any idea what might have happened? I have a backup copy of the file that I need, so I do not need to recover it.

[Twey]

Weird. The closest I've seen to that was when I moved a ZIP file, and it renamed itself to ‘02a02812’.

It was part of a fairly amusing fiasco about half a decade ago, which I recorded for someone or other:

Now, I have a dodgy DVD drive on this desktop, and it has a penchant for corrupting anything you put through it. So, to install UT2004, I decide to
compress all the files on this Windows laptop, send them over the network, then extract them here. In Linux, I could do this all with two clicks of the
mouse, or one command. But no, not Windows. I select the files, go to "Send To->Compressed (zipped) Folder." A little bar comes up, and after a few
moments it tells me it can't write to the zip file. It's trying to create a zipfile on the DVD. Well, OK, I think. I'll just enter in a new path for the
zipfile. So I click OK - and bang, no more bar, no more zipfile. Great. I go to the desktop. I right-click, New, Compressed Folder. So, I have to
grab these files, copy-paste them across to this "folder." OK. It starts compressing. "Great," I think, and close the laptop and tuck it under my
desk. A minute or so later, I think, "Oh crap. Windows hibernates the laptop when it's shut!" I open up this laptop, and, to my relief, it's still
chugging away merrily. I leave it propped on my keyboard and try not to elbow it onto the floor. Another couple of minutes later (during this whole thing,
by the way, the little bar has said "5 seconds remaining") the big ugly blue splash comes up saying "Windows is shutting down." It hibernates.
I turn it on again, and the compression operation has crashed. I go through that whole ctrl-alt-del, select, click "End" routine, and kill the task.
Explorer dies. I wait for the entire desktop environment to start again. My zipfile has gone. Completely and utterly vanished. Not just the file it
was working on when it died; that would have been corrupted, deleting that's OK. But no. It took away the whole zipfile, and all the files in it. Great.
I start all over again. This time, as soon as I paste the files into the zipfile, Windows changes the file's name to "02a02812." I have absolutely no
idea why; it seems to just have a sudden urge to do so. This wouldn't be a problem on any REAL OS, but the file has no extension.
I can't open it, because Windows refuses to even TOUCH a file if it doesn't have an extension. "omg wot is it? i cant open that! it might bite me!" It
couldn't POSSIBLY actually check its MIME-type, and of course, because the ZIP viewer is built into Windows, I can't choose it from the "Choose a program"
list of about half the programs actually installed on the laptop. Great. I can't see how my files are progressing (bearing in mind that the progress bar is still empty and says "5 seconds remaining"). I can't rename it, because it's in use. I just have to sit here and hope that it's actually doing it, and hasn't decided it's going to have another temper tantrum.

And that, mis amigos, is *half* the reason why I hate Windows.

P.S. At this time of finishing, the progress bar has just switched to saying "10 seconds remaining," then showed the progress of about five files, before going back to being blank with "5 seconds remaining."

[X96 Web Design]

If only everyone used Linux and MAC - the world would be a much happier place..

// X96 \\

[techno_race]

Additional: the files also all appeared to have been both created and last modified on February 22, 1980 at 12:02 AM (22/2/1980 0:02 for you out-of-continent people).

I was looking at it again on a different computer a while back, and all the regular files appeared.
The "V" files actually do not exist, even though Windows thinks they do. If I try to open or copy one of them, it gives a "File not found"-style error.
Also, I was just looking at it on Windows 2000, and I saw instead of 256 "V"s 256 "╬"s, all 13,185 KB, all created and last modified on June 14, 1980 12:06 AM (14/6/1980 0:06). They also all didn't exist. That's just plain wacky. I have now dubbed that folder "PsychoFolder."

[PcTestCard.com]

Hi Is that a viruses infected drive?
Try scan the drive to make sure.

Hope this helps!
Bill

[techno_race]

I scanned it with Norton Internet Security (the new version - not the old crappy one) last night and the check came up clean. On a side note, I have also noticed some text files in the root directory that have had each character replaced with (U+0020, space).