Difficulty: Moderately Challenging
Step1
Make a thorough search through each of the drives one at a time. Some problems with missing files come from having a lot of "auxiliary" drives such as network drives, flash drives or external drives. Take each one and sweep through to see which drive your files may be hiding in.
Step2
Do a name search. If you know what the program's name is, or even part of it, you can use windows search command from the start menu. Type in the target text and let the computer search multiple drives to find results.
Step3
Search by type. When you open folders with many files inside, you can narrow down your search by what type of file you're looking for such as an .exe executable file or a .jpg. Select a "list with details" option for the folder contents display, then scroll through different file extensions until you find where your program would be.
Step4
Search by size. You can also look at files in a specific folder by size. Under the detailed format, slick the "size" choice and scroll through from smaller files to larger ones.
Step5
Clean up your desktop and label all folders. Get rid of duplicated folders and spare files you don't need to make your drive easier to search in the future.
