I deleted Content.IE5 subfolders and now nothing works

[calhockey]

I deleted subfolders under the Content.IE5. These are the hidden folders under directory Documents and Setting/Administrator/Local Settings/Temprorary Internet Files/ Content.IE5. These subfolders were titled something like QLUB5SA (just an randmon example). These subfolders contained over 100,000 files and 2+ GB of memory. It appeared to be cache of temp internet files all the pages, videos, pics, text, sounds, etc.

Now that I deleted them... and it ran all night... the computer can't recognize the disk.

A bit more info. This used to be the primary hard drive on an HP Pavillion that stopped working. I changed the settings and attached it to another HP Pavillion as a slave drive. I could navigate within it just fine yesterday. Now, after deleted the content.IE5 subfolder, I can't even see it. When it did show up in My Computer Explore list (randomly after some time of doing nothing) I was seeing messages like this drive is not formatted. When I start up the computer it shows the hard drive with a message "Capable but command failed".

My primary objective is to recover documents (photos, movies, music, doc, xls, etc) from the drive. Please assist in any way possible.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Welcome to the Windows Forum.

Deleting the browser cache content is OK, but you shouldn't delete the cache folders. However, this shouldn't cause what you are seeing; in the worst case IE wouldn't work any more. But I think IE would automatically recreate missing cache folders.

What I would try in your case is first boot into Last Known Good Configuration. If that doesn't work, try booting into Safe Mode, then try a System Restore.

In the future, use CCleaner to safely get rid of unwanted temporary files.

[calhockey]

UPDATE:

The hard drive in question is a Western Digital Hard 200 gig HD.

After further digging and some suggestion, it appears that perhaps the drive failing. When I boot up the computer, before the OS loads I get a system message showing available disks. For the hard drive in question I am getting the "S.M.A.R.T. Capable but command failed" message. Then the computer goes into super slow (almost dead) speed. I was able to see the drive in my computer, but it was showing that it wasn't formated. When I looked on Disk Management, it showed the drive and size; however, it didn't show what file format (FAT32, N???) as it did for the other good hard drive.

So could me running the content IE delete over night had over heated or burned the drive? What can be done to rescue the data? I need some FBI-type help here :)

It's crucial that I get the personal files from the hard drive. I am concerned that the suggestions offered would reformat the drive.

When I put the drive back into the original PC, I still get nothing - fan blowing, computer running, black screen. So how do I run a recovery disk on a slave drive on the 2nd PC?

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

There are people on this forum who will be able to give you specific advice for your situation, but you may have to wait until daytime in the UK. Meanwhile I would advise you not to do anything with that possibly failing HD.