I recently restarted my laptop to uninstall McAfee, but I think I messed up the process. I have a Lenovo Ideapad running Windows 10 Home, and I don't really know much about computers. When I tried to uninstall McAfee, I skipped some prompts. After confirming the uninstallation, my laptop restarted, and when it booted up, everything was reset to default—my wallpaper and taskbar look like new, and all my photos and documents are missing. Some software like Medibang and Firefox is still installed, though. I remember seeing something about reinstalling Windows during the process, but that seemed too quick for a full reinstall. I thought I'd backed up my files to OneDrive, but that folder is empty. I also looked for a windows.old file but couldn't find one. I'm really confused about what I did and how to recover my lost data. Is there something I should have done before uninstalling an antivirus like McAfee? Any help would be appreciated!
3 Answers
Make sure to check if hidden files are enabled in your File Explorer settings. Go to Control Panel and enable viewing hidden folders. Sometimes files go missing because they're just hidden, not actually deleted.
I'm not really sure what happened during the uninstall, but did you try using the McAfee removal tool from their website? It's designed to completely get rid of all traces of their software, and it can be more reliable than the built-in uninstaller. Also, you can check if you have any restore points saved on your system—going back to a previous state could help recover some files as well.
Good point! I had a similar situation before and restoring to a previous point helped me retrieve my files.
It sounds like you might have booted into a temporary profile instead of your own, which can happen sometimes. Check the 'C:Users' directory to see if your usual profile name is there. If it is, you should check that folder to see if your files are still intact. If that's the case, you can retrieve your data from that profile and continue using your laptop normally.
I had the same issue once! It ended up being just a temporary profile. Just navigate to the right Users folder, and you might find everything safe!
Yeah, definitely check your hidden files! It’s amazing how many things end up hidden from view.