File does not exist suddenly

Question

So I am an artist, my work makes up a good chunk of my income. I also use my computer for gaming, I opened slime rancher 2 to play it and then I remembered it runs a bit slow because I don't have that great amount of space left over. So I go through and start getting rid of old files I don't need anymore. Suddenly as I'm finished I realized, a folder I never touched just DISAPPEARED. I was in one folder that entire time, I only touched that single folder; some stuff I wasn't even deleting some I was moving to other stashes. So I'm severally confused, I looked in the trash, all my other folders, I searched for it, I went as far as to use command prompt to search for the folder...it doesn't exist now. I open my art program (paint tool sai version 1) and when I go up to files, and go to the open recent option there are 3 files that say "file not exist or access denied." Paint tool sai is the only thing that even recognized the files and the folder existed. No where else on my computer knows. also I cannot create restore points except for in one location because no matter what I did Microsoft would not accept the key I had to this computer, so I have minimal personalization for like backgrounds. I was actually going to create a restore point in that area AFTER I was done cleaning out my folders. But this takes precedence because it's a have source of my income just POOFED out of existence. I really need help understand how this even possible, again, on a folder I never even messed with. And before you ask YES I did turn it on and off, I did uninstall and reinstall the program, I even uninstalled recent updates. The entire folder and all of its contents do not exist and the only traces of it are in the program itself.

Answer 1

Hello, According to your discription, it seems there are some files got lost accidentally, try ues below method to recover lost or deleted files.

1. To restore files from a backup Restore a file from a backup, make sure the media or drive that your backup is saved on is available, and then follow these steps: Open Backup and Restore by selecting the Start button Start button icon, selecting Control Panel, selecting System and Maintenance, and then selecting Backup and Restore. Select Restore my files, and then follow the steps in the wizard.
2. To restore a deleted file or folder Open Computer by selecting the Start button Start button icon, and then selecting Computer. Navigate to the folder that used to contain the file or folder, right-click it, and then select Restore previous versions. If the folder was at the top level of a drive, for example C:, right-click the drive, and then select Restore previous versions. You'll see a list of available previous versions of the file or folder. The list will include files saved on a backup (if you are using Windows Backup to back up your files) as well as restore points, if both types are available.