Danger Of Torrent Download Folder Showing Folder(S) Empty

[McGarty]

Apologies if this has been covered before.

I d/l The Debt Eng 2011 today for a friend who has a damaged copy.

The d/l took over permission of my torrent d/l folder and showed it as empty in My Computer. Yet if I right clicked in Utorrent on certain folders to "open containing folder" I could open some of them but 'lost' maybe 50% of my torrents. So the folder was not empty.

Before doing anything else I copied the folders and torrents I could see to a secure location but that was not necessary But I wanted to make sure I kept those files.

If this happens to you ( the folder showing empty ), there are methods shown on the internet that do not appear to work. Many will tell you to go to the drive, the folder, right click, click Properties, click the Security Tab and go to advanced. That may not work for you as it did not for me because it does not always show a Security Tab in properties.

You need to go to the drive in question ( mine was drive letter E ), Tools, Folder Options, View, and untick Use Simple File Sharing.

Now you can go to the folder in question that says it is empty, right click the folder, Properties, Security, and reclaim the Ownership of the folder.

In my case I clicked on Administrator, ticked Full in the options. Now I have all my torrents back and the folder is no longer empty.

When you d/l a Torrent you do not know what is in that torrent unless from a reputable source. So do be aware the simply d/l a torrent can cause various problems.

Next time someone asks me for a file....

[coconutter]

use a private tracker,xspeeds.com. one of the best all uk american tv,an every movie you can think off,happy torrenting/

[Phil Conners]

I don't quite understand this story. A download taking over a folder on it's own, it just doesn't make sense, sounds like FUD. Sounds more like simple disk errors to me. I't suggest trying chkdsk the partition and see if you get any errors.

[astral]

There is no FUD here.

I have exactly the same problem, downloaded files show when viewed through uTorrent

but do not show up in the folder when viewed with windows explorer.

However the posters suggested cure does not work for me under Windows 7.

I wonder which OS he is using?

Google has not offered me a solution yet, and I am still looking

[astral]

Correction.

I followed McGarty's suggestion and it did not recover any files.

However the files I downloaded last night do show up through utorrent

AND Windows explorer.

So something has changed!

Thanks for the advice. :jap:

PS This problem is reported for Vista and seems to persist in Win 7.

[McGarty]

There is no FUD here.

I have exactly the same problem, downloaded files show when viewed through uTorrent

but do not show up in the folder when viewed with windows explorer.

However the posters suggested cure does not work for me under Windows 7.

I wonder which OS he is using?

Google has not offered me a solution yet, and I am still looking

Sorry, not been in Computers' for a little while.

I am using XP pro.

[McGarty]

I don't quite understand this story. A download taking over a folder on it's own, it just doesn't make sense, sounds like FUD. Sounds more like simple disk errors to me. I't suggest trying chkdsk the partition and see if you get any errors.

Sorry for being late in looking back on this.

Within that particular torrent there had to be a code. A virus or a trojan type code that actually hid all the .avi files in that particular folder. Yet no virus or trojan showed up on my various malaware/virus scans.

The internet did tell me how to recover the files so it is not an unknown phenomenon. I should have mentioned I am using XP Pro too.

After reporting it to the site itself that torrent file was deleted.

[McGarty]

Correction.

I followed McGarty's suggestion and it did not recover any files.

However the files I downloaded last night do show up through utorrent

AND Windows explorer.

So something has changed!

Thanks for the advice. :jap:

PS This problem is reported for Vista and seems to persist in Win 7.

After reading this post I did find one thing that might be of help.

WMA WIMAD a trojan that can cause this problem.

Avast antivirus did not find this on my computer but I gather that can happen with wma wimad trojan and Avast from some reports on the net.

wma wimad can hide certain folders. I quote from one of the sites discussing wma wimad, ' Usually it states the false incapacity of your software configuration to view this kind of media.'

It maybe worth checking out to see if you have this Trojan?

Agree from my searches that it is hard to find a cure for the disappearing files problem with Vista.

The url of the site I got the quote from, if it is allowed,

http://www.bitdefender.com/VIRUS-1000317-en--Trojan-Downloader-WMA-Wimad.html

Edited October 22, 2011 by McGarty

[astral]

I did suspect a virus, possibly a trojan, but scans with various anti-virus sw

did not pick up on this one, though some missed by ZoneAlarm Extreme Security,

where picked up..............

[bendejo]

Could it be possible that the directory/files were set as "hidden"?

Did you have the Win settings for "show hidden files"?

I hardly ever use Win Explorer, I use FreeCommander (check it out). It works respecting all the file attribute settings of Explorer, at least on my version on Win 7.

[astral]

I have tried installing the trial version of BitDefender but it fails,

perhaps because I am running the 64 bit version of Windows?

[McGarty]

I did suspect a virus, possibly a trojan, but scans with various anti-virus sw

did not pick up on this one, though some missed by ZoneAlarm Extreme Security,

where picked up..............

Wish I could suggest more. But after trawling through the net it is hard to find repies that suit your version of windows. Many people seem to have that same problem but no definitive answers.

If the files were previously visible (as yours were) it is possible the security settings have changed re access to the files, but I am not savvy on your version of Windows. A piece of malicious code (like the one I got from d/l that movie) can hide folders and is well documented for XP version - Thankfully for me.

As said above check the folders are set to visible. In one site someone mentioned having to reset for every single folder that had gone missing.

Wish I could help more

[McGarty]

Correction.

I followed McGarty's suggestion and it did not recover any files.

However the files I downloaded last night do show up through utorrent

AND Windows explorer.

So something has changed!

Thanks for the advice. :jap:

PS This problem is reported for Vista and seems to persist in Win 7.

Just a thought....

If you can see the files in Utorrent, can you click on the file in Utorrent itself to highlight it. Then right click and 'Open containing folder' ? Then copy that file over to a seperate drive?