hi. Please someone tell me what the hell happened to my desktop files?? i found out first when i opened a file and it gave me an error saying basically it doesnt excist, other files as well, so i restarted the computer and now they are gone!! i am under MATE desktop. only a few of them are left the ones that i have just recently downloaded.
these files are valuable to me how can they just diappear like that?

If you open a terminal and look in your home directory in the desktop directory are they there?

in other words, look in

/home/youruser/Desktop and see if they are there. The path I just gave should be the path to your desktop files for MOST Linux distros.

i copied and pasted this in the terminal

I dont know if this relates or not, i have to login as Mate and cannot login as 'last session', i had this problem for a while now

By "youruser" I mean your username. If your username is propcuser on your linux system the path would be:

/home/propcuser/Desktop

You should have created a normal user account for yourself during the Linux installation.

If you cant log in to your desktop and you are staring at the log in screen you can pres Ctrl+Alt+F2 a text base welcome windows should open. Type your user name there hit enter then type your password there and hit enter.
if you type ls you can see the files and directory in the home directory, you can switch directories by using the cd command.

you will have to attach an external hard drive and mount it to a known location then you can copy all the files from your desktop to that known location where your external hard drive is mounted.

if you are no familiar with the command line this might take few days post here any questions that you have and I am sure somebody here will be able to help you.

Good luck to you

ha, oh shoot, im sorry i had just gone out of bed when i did this . after correction the terminnal told me it is a directory, ok whats the next step?

Where you copied and pasted adam525's suggestion into the terminal, not only do you need to change the user as he suggested but you need to run the ls command to list the files in that directory.

the terminal lists the new files too is there anyway to recover the old ones?,, its like my computer decided to delete them byitself.

Ohhh! I know, I know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photorec

Are you sure you have logged in with same user on whose desktop you have put the files because if you have logged in with different user, you can't see files on different user's desktop.

yes i have. it started when i could see them but could not access them when i restarted the icons are not there anymore.. i really need a profesional linux geek here...

Have you opened them before, are you sure they were not corrupt?
because there is no full proof way to recover files which were present in the directory before and currently they are not.
Now you are in trouble, so you don't want to listen that you should keep back up of your important files.
What type of files they are are they image files? and it matters what are there sizes?

I am not sure it will help you or not you can try this.
http://www.howtoforge.com/recover-de...s-with-scalpel

I personally do not believe in these Softwares because they can't do much the best way is back up and I always follow it because it is full proof way.

Have you checked if these files have been hidden accidentally.
check
cd /your/path/of/desktop
ls -a

theyr not there! *weeping*
could be a hd problem i remember i left the pc running all night before it happened

is it normal that when i type sudo nautilus the desktop folder is empty eventhough the desktop itself curretly has files?