My extensive photo collection has disappeared............

[Ray Montee]

Photo's collected over the past year and days, and lodged in my Photo gallery section of Win-8......

In early afternoon all disappeared and only thing showing is a graphic scene.

WHAT could have happened?

[Anders Eriksson]

I can't say what has happened, but I will say this:

DON'T use any program to recover files from disk!

If you do you will eliminate the possibility for an expert to recover them!

Hopefully you have a backup of the photos!
If not, then you should contact a company that specializes on Data Recovery.

// Anders

[Roger Kelly]

Ray,you can do a System Recovery back a day or two before you remember last seeing them.

That should get them back.

You have probably accidentally deleted the pics.

After you recover them back them up on a disk or thumb drive.

[Wiz Feinberg]

Photo's collected over the past year and days, and lodged in my Photo gallery section of Win-8......

In early afternoon all disappeared and only thing showing is a graphic scene.

WHAT could have happened?

Cryptolocker could have happened! This malware encrypts image and document files, then holds them for ransom unless you pay a blackmail fee, by Bitcoins, to get the decryption key.

Depending on your folder view settings, if you are the victim of the CryptoLocker malware, you won't see those files because their extensions have been changed. Once Cryptolocker is done with hiding all the files it can, it displays an unmistakable red notice on your desktop, demanding payment to release the key to you.

Hopefully, this isn't what's happened in your case, Ray.

[Bud Angelotti]

Look in the trash Ray.
Maybe you accidentally deleted them.
I did that once.
Cheers!
Just had another thought for you Ray.
If you can remember any of the names of the photos,
hit the button on the bottom left side of your screen. It will give you a search window. Type in the name of one of your photos. If the photos are on your computer, it'll find 'em for you.
You may have moved the photos to another folder by mistake. I've done that by mistake as well.
Hope that helps.