Does FTM still start up on your computer? You can go to the recycle bin, right click and restore anything and everything under normal circumstances. However in your case you have tried a Restore and I have no idea how that might affect the recycle bin. Does Family Tree Maker use the file suffix of .ftm? Why not try a search. click Start, click All programs - with Vista I think you now click on Accessories, then click Search. Type in *.ftm and see what that brings up. The *star indicates a wild card, in other words we are searching for anything and everything with the .ftm suffix if there are any such files. Failing that right click on Start, click Explore. Now look on the left side and click the plus sign beside C: - if it is already clicked it will show a - minus sign. Look down the list underneath for Program files and click the plus sign beside that. Now look further down the same list for your Family Tree folder and click the plus sign beside it. Once that is done start looking on the right side of your screen for anything indicating your data. How many generations do you have recorded so far? Nothing to do with the issue but more of an interested inquiry LOL.

polarprincess- What do you have on your computer taking up a lot of space besides a bunch of photos? I have a computer with an 80GB hard drive, and I have never used more than 20GB. Are you loaded up with some programs you don't really use, or music files that you don't listen to? Also, you should not be storing pictures permanently on your hard drive, at least without backing them up onto an external drive and/or a CD/DVD. Look at it this way, when your hard drive fails someday -- as happens to many people -- are you going to have a bunch of valuable stuff permanently disappear because you only saved it to your hard drive? I've had several friends tell me that they wished thay had listened to me when I suggested they do a backup of valuable files...but they never got around to it, and then their computer died. I'm not trying to lecture you...just giving you a word of advice.

We must share some of the same windows updates. I have it too,, .bak files dated 12/24 for the most part, both OE and Newsgroups. So I went snooping for the why. It was one of the new microsoft updates that started doing that for OE, I guess Outlook too. You might recall seeing a windows system popup asking if you want to save space by compacting your mail database's ? When you said OK - It's backed up all your .dbx files to the recycle bin in case something goes kafluie when compacting those files - Which could cause you to lose your messages. You might want to search with the advanced feature checked for one of the main file names like inbox.* and see if it turns up in addition to inbox.bak - hopefully with a file of approx same size probablfy named inbox.dbx . before you clear your recycle bin.

in it I can toss anything I just don't know what to do with I like this! True, you do have to do something w/ it eventually, but as long as you DO something w/ it eventually, I think this is a great idea. It would keep me from stalling. I have one section of my home that is allowed to be messy, even when I'm being neat. That helps me a lot w/ the other areas. I'm just not able to be 100% most of the time, and I refuse to beat myself up over it. Also, that's an interesting observation about finding it *easier* to deal w/ stuff when it's gathered together in a box. Corralled, so to speak. I've found that to be the case, esp. w/ DS. I'll challenge him to clean his room by "doing a dozen," and he and I together will grab 12 things off the floor, and put them in a laundry basket. Then, I set a timer and see if he can put those 12 things away in under 3 minutes. Then repeat, until the room is done. I had this "give up" box fail on me, though--because I didn't completely empty it (in fact, eventually I wen tweeks w/o looking in there). in our house, stuff ends up on the DR table, esp. mail; then DH scoops it all off to clear the table for supper, and instead of making the kids put away everythign they can, and him too, he just would set the whole day's stash "somewhere," always in a different place. By the time I got home, it was invisible. I put a laundry basket in the DR and insisted they put stuff in there. It kept all the mail in one place, but I wasn't disciplined enough to go through it frequently enough, so I had to eliminate it. Lilydilly, I agree w/ you, sometimes that stuff just falls out of space. And I *will* throw those stupid little things away, sometimes--paperclips, etc. (I'm chuckling over your "chest pocket" discovery)